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Budget to premium and everything in between: 14 of the top iPod docks compared.
From Vaio to Macbook Pro, we test and compare 7 of the best slim, ultra-light laptops.
EDITORIAL
Patent wars
oogle, Microsoft, Apple, RIM, HP, EMC, Sony the list of companies that have recently spent a billion dollars or more on patents is growing. Across the world, dozens of little wars are being waged. All our favorite companies are dashing wildly and slinging mud at each other in public, while their lawyers laugh all the way to the bank. Patents have become a kind of weaponin a world where hardware is becoming increasingly commoditized and software is becoming decreasingly unique, a strong portfolio of patents affords companies some hope. Not hope that they might be able to develop something astounding and unique that people will rush to buy even if they never knew they needed such a thingbut hope that even if they are able to develop something somewhat noteworthy, theyll be able to prevent others from copying it.
Every desirable smartphone today has a touchscreen. Every tablet looks roughly the same and does roughly the same things. If youre an Android licensee without your own operating system, chances are your devices will do pretty much exactly the same things as your competitors devices, just as well. They might even be manufactured side by side in the same factory in China. The stream of innovationreal innovationis down to a trickle, and it doesnt take that long for a reasonably determined company to copy someone elses products. Thats when lawsuits start flying around. Frivolous lawsuits, over the use of a particular material finish, or a type of way that a product might be designed for people to hold it, or even the shape of a plug on an accessory and the color of the box it comes in! Lawsuits designed to keep everyone busy arguing over petty details, solely to prevent a disputed product from being sold. Ones in which evidence is apparently faked, or defendants arent given the chance to present evidence. Pointless ones which will be thrown out of court eventually, but could still cause enough pain to prevent a small company from even thinking of stepping on one of the global giants toes. In an environment like this, patent trolls spring up and thrive. Its possible for someone with absolutely no innovation worth patenting to obtain the exclusive rights to something so vaguely g p y defined that it winds up encompassing pretty much everything out there. There are plenty of d companies who specialize in lying low, picking fat targets, and then striking at the worst possible ducts time. With a simple court order, they can have millions of products yanked off d store shelves, tie up millions of dollars' worth of inventory, and aggravate loyal ettle customers who just want to buy something. Theyll happily settle for an exorbitant amount of money, though. Thats also when real innovation dies. The big companies are spending tual more on legal fees strategic acquisitions then they are on actual research emselves and developmenttheyre more worried about protecting themselves than s reaching their customers. And small startups find their hands tied. Unable to rket develop products even slightly similar to anything on the market for fear of en being sued out of existence, theyll just give up or sell out. Even good e companies might be bought out and shut down, because the new owners want o their patent portfolio, not their actual products. The ones who really lose out then, are we, the consumers.
Jamshed Avari [email protected]
09/2011
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
Contents
88 Cover story
SEPTEMBER 2011
The Mac Hack
NEWSWIRE
16 In the News... 20 The Buzz List
A look at what's making news in the world of technology.
tESt cENtER
36 Product Spotlight 38 Hardware Tested 58 Lean and Mean 64 Play It Loud
AMD's latest offering fuses CPU and GPU on a single chip. Is it as good as we've hoped?
FEatuREd
88 The Mac Hack
We show you how to install and run OS X Lion on your ordinary PC.
The people, products and innovations that have got the tech world talking.
The latest PC hardware, mobile phones, digital cameras and more, tested and rated.
100 7 Quick Solutions for Software Breakdowns 104 Web Watch
26 Intel Classmate: Innovation in Education
Analysis and repair tools help alleviate the frustration of problematic software.
Intel's range of Classmate PCs is aiming to change the way education is imparted.
From Vaio to Macbook, we test and compare seven of the best slim and ultra-light laptops.
We scour the Internet and bring you some interesting websites that you may want to visit.
28 Keeping Internet Pirates at Bay 32 Do Not Disturb: A Distant Dream?
Budget to premium, and everything in between; 14 of the top iPod docks compared.
Film and music piracy is growing rapidly, and Indian law is ill-equipped to tackle the menace.
72 Software Spotlight 74 Software Tested
Does McAfee Family Protection offer enough to ensure a secure family browsing experience?
Mobile users are flooded with promotional calls and spam text messages. Can it be stopped?
Everything from image tools and video editors to system tuning apps and antivirus software.
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09/2011
intelligent computing chip
Contents
SEPTEMBER 2011
36 TesT CenTer HarDwarE The latest hardware reviewed
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Boot Screen
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116 hands on CHrOMIuM ON YOur NOTEbOOK Get Chromium OS without the Chromebook
72 TesT CenTer SOFTwarE SPOTLIgHT McAfee Family Protection
hands on
107 Dr CHIP
Our in-house expert helps you out with your computing woes.
unwind
124 The Darkness II Interview 126 Call of Juarez: The Cartel 128 Child of Eden 129 From Dust
We catch up with the developer of the eagerly anticipated, brutal supernatural FPS.
regulars
04 Editorial, 10 Colophon, 12 Letters, 16 In the News..., 20 The Buzz List, 22 New Products Launched, 82 Long Term Test, 86 PC Configs, 104 Web Watch, 107 Dr CHIP, 118 Tips & Tricks, 132 Market Watch, 143 Contests, 146 Personal Tech
112 Old Laptop: Second Monitor
Turn your old unused laptop's screen to create an extended display for your desktop PC.
From Western to urban, the series makes a less than impressive transition to modern times.
116 Chromium on Your Notebook

You don't need Google's Chromebooks to get the Chromium OS experience.
Tetsuya Misuguchi's stylish Kinect-enabled shooter delivers!
117 Splash Your HTC Desire 118 Tips N Tricks
Bored with your HTC Desires stock splash screen? Why not replace it with your own?
It's the return on the God games genre, but the execution is less than perfect.
Some useful tweaks and hidden application features you may not know about.
130 Fruit Ninja Kinect
The popular smartphone game goes from touchscreen to touch-free with Kinect.
09/2011
COLOPHON
FOUNDER & EDITOR, NETWORK18 Raghav Bahl PRESIDENT & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, TV18 Senthil Chengalvarayan MANAGING EDITOR Hatim Kantawalla [email protected] DEPUTY EDITOR Jamshed Avari [email protected] DEPUTY EDITOR - TECHNICAL Anand Tuliani [email protected] COPY DESK Sameer Desai ASSISTANT HEAD - TEST CENTER Francis DSa MULTIMEDIA COORDINATOR Sachin Haldankar TEST CENTER COORDINATOR Gautami Chalke SENIOR FEATURES WRITER Priyanka Tilve SPECIAL PROJECTS WRITERS Kamakshi Venugopal, Kushal Mamoowala SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Nirmal Biswas ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Jagdish Limbachiya SENIOR DESIGNER - CHIP INSIDER Hemali Limbachiya DESIGNER Harshad Gujare ILLUSTRATORS Sachin Pandit, Chaitanya Surpur TECH2.0 TEAM Shayne Rana, Rossi Fernandes, Roydon Cerejo, Avinash Bali, Padmini Harchandrai, Aaron Almeida, Karan Shah, Anuradha Shett y, Rajesh Dsouza HEAD - INTERNET Tushar Burman CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER Mexy Xavier PHOTOGRAPHERS Neha Mithbawkar, Joshua Navalkar IMAGE PROCESSING Sanjay Shelar, Ravi Salian, Ravikumar Potdar
GROUP CEO, NETWORK18 Haresh Chawla GROUP COO, NETWORK18 B. Sai Kumar CEO - PUBLISHING, INFOMEDIA18 Sandeep Khosla EVP - HUMAN RESOURCES Sanjeev Kumar Singh
ADVERTISING SALES
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT - SALES Siddhartha Chatterjee NATIONAL SALES HEAD Badri Narayan ([email protected]) SALES SUPPORT HEAD Sagar Salunkhe ([email protected]) MUMBAI: Amit Dhotre ([email protected]) BANGALORE: Milan Abraham ([email protected]) HYDERABAD: Rocky Joseph ([email protected] NEW DELHI: Vivek Ojha ([email protected]) CHENNAI: Madhivaanan ([email protected])
MARKETING
HEAD - MARKETING Amit Seth SENIOR MANAGER - MARKETING Nikhil Sharma
NEWSSTAND AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

HEAD (COPY SALES) Sunil Nair DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER Manoj Palsay West: Mumbai: Soorendra Desai, Sanjay Bhujle, Yeshwant Gotpagar, Dinesh Devadiga; Pune: Sachin Kamble, Nitin Agre; Ahmedabad: Pranav Dave; Nagpur: Abhijeet Roy. North: Delhi: Ashish Chakravorty, Kamal Bisht, Sanjay Sharma, Kamakhya Pandey; Lucknow: Amit Singh. East: Kolkatt a: Debraj Sur. South: Chennai: Kripanand S, Balaji G; Bangalore: Devaraju Gowda; Hydrabad: G.S. Mahesh, Ratnaprasad Choppara; Cochin: A.K.Shihabuddin.
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EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Ananth R. Iyer ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER - PPC Shekhar Khot PRODUCTION TEAM Surekha Karmarkar, Dnyaneshwar Goythale, Vikas Bobhate
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CHIP INTERNATIONAL: Editorial Consultant International - Thomas Pyczak, Poccistrabe 11, 80336 Munchen CHIP is also published in the following countries: China, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine Copyright 2004 INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP is an internationally protected trademark owned by CHIP Communications GmbH Views and opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Infomedia18 Ltd., its publisher and/or editors. We at Infomedia18 do our best to verify the information published but do not take any responsibility for the absolute accuracy of the information. Infomedia18 does not accept the responsibility for any investment or other decision taken by readers on the basis of information provided herein. Infomedia18 Ltd. does not take responsibility for returning unsolicited material sent without due postal stamps for return postage. No part of this magazine can be reproduced without the prior writt en permission of the publisher. Infomedia18 Ltd. reserves the right to use the information published herein in any manner whatsoever. Published by Lakshmi Narasimhan and printed by Mohan Gajria on behalf of Infomedia18 Ltd. Editor: Lakshmi Narasimhan Printed at Infomedia18 Ltd., Plot No. 3, Sector No. 7, Off Sion-Panvel Road, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 706 & published at Infomedia18 Ltd., A Wing, Ruby House, J.K. Sawant Marg, Dadar (W), Mumbai 28. For all international subscription enquiries, contact the Subscription Department, Intelligent Computing CHIP All editorial queries must be directed to the Editor, Intelligent Computing CHIP, Infomedia18 Ltd, Special Interest Publications Division, A Wing, Ruby House, JK Sawant Marg, Dadar West, Mumbai 28 Tel: (91 22) 30034631-35; Fax: (91 22) 30034499, Email: [email protected]
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10
09/2011
LETTERS
INBOX
Next month's Star Letter wins accessories set (worth Rs 5,000)
STAR LETT'sEinR th w ner

This mon cool gets a set accessories
Why so serious?
Dear CH CHIP, Recently many of us must have seen tickers on all TV channels stating that any contentcontent-related grievances can be reported to the Broadcast Content Complaint Council (BCCC). If any sexual, vulgar or objectionable content is telecast on chan any channel, even cartoon channels, you can report it to the BCCC and that content will be censored. This move by the government is due to a certain group filing complaints with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. But more than solving the issue, it will take the real fun out of shows, e especially foreign ones. Im not entirely against the rule, but my concern is how a governing agenc agency can be easily influenced by a small group of so called concerned citizens. Im sure that this group consists of people who actually spend time looking objectionab for objectionable content on various channels. This is clear moral policing. My worst fear acti is that the same action might be implemented on the Internet, which will resemble what doing China has been doing. Forget about porn, people there cant even Google search. Even if
Sachin Pandit
similar search engine are operational, they are heavily controlled and monitored. engines Such actions are on legitimate if there is a real threat to national security, not necessarily only social security. Social life and beliefs are individual concerns. By the time you read this, I hope sto the London riots will have stopped. Reports are emerging that social networking sites such are violenc responsible for the spread of violence. Debates are going on whether such sites should be banned or not! Its up to individuals to watch out for themselves, and if they find any objectionable content or material they can simply shut down their own PCs and TVs, not the entire system. Regards, NIKHIL R Dear Nikhil, We share the same views, but unfortunately there are far too many people around who make others business their own and think its necessary to impose their personal morals and standards on the entire country. Moral activists and supposedly concerned citizens have been trying to censor TV and the Web for many years, and theyve already succeeded to the point where our broadcast media are so boring and sanitized that people have just tuned out. Weve heard of several people pirating their favorite TV shows just because of the ridiculous way that scenes are regularly cut, dialogue silenced, and subtitles replaced. TVs have had parental locks built in for years, so we wonder why offended citizens cant be happy with using that function. Luckily, its getting easier to source content from unconventional sources, and online distribution will help people get what theyre looking for without the government or individual busybodies deciding what is or isnt suitable for us. TEAM CHIP
Facebook today
Dear Sir,
is focusing on Anna Hazares movement and people are supporting it in Delhi from all over India. Facebook has become a strong medium through which people can join the movement of Anna Hazare. We always say that Facebook is emerging as an addiction, but this time it is emerging as the voice of
the common people who cant go outside to protest against corruption. Facebook gives them a platform to raise their voices against corruption and the Governments Lokpal bill. People also say that Facebook is not good for our generation, but now it has emerged as a platform for the nation.
CONTACT INFO
I have been an avid reader of CHIP since 2009. I want to attract the attention of people who suggest Facebook is an addiction. I am writing to you on the 18th of August 2011, when Mr Anna Hazare is in jail for protesting against the governments Lokpal bill. The media
Please send your letters to: [email protected] with "LETTERS" in the subject line
12
09/2011
LETTERS
SMS US
Since we like knowing whats on your mind and what you think about our magazine, we bring you another way to get in touch. Do you have something to say about a test or review? Liked a feature story? Was the workshop useful? SMS us your feedback! For general comments, create the following message: ICCO <Your comments here> Example: ICCO The cover story was very useful To rate a story, product review, etc look out for the story tag at the base of each article and type: ICCO <Story tag> <Rating> Example: ICCO PWS 5 The Story tag is mentioned at the base of every story in the magazine and the Rating is on a scale of 1 to 5. Finally, send your messages to 51818. Cheers! Please keep comments to 160 characters per message! Include your email address to help us reply or check out the SMS Feedback thread at www.chip.in/forums
In these changing times every Facebook account holder can talk about Anna Hazares campaign against corruption. This way, we all feel its power and we can say Facebook is a means of virtual revolution. AJAY KARNATAK DEHRADUN, UTTRAKHAND
AUGUST 2011 VOLUME 8 ISSUE 9 Rs 150
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3G: WHY EVERYONES ANGRY WILL TABLETS REALLY KILL THE PC? COMMON TECH MYTHS DEBUNKED FUN DIGITAL CAMERA TRICKS HACK YOUR ANDROID BOOT SCREEN
CHIP, is there any eligibility qualification or is it pure talent and knowledge? I am currently in the final year of engineering college and would like to be a part of CHIP. Please let me know how can I get in. In the current issue i.e August, you have listed the ASRock Fatal1ty pro Gen3 motherboard with price TBA. but while reviewing the Z68
Pricing problems
Dear CHIP, I have been a reader since before my engineering days, over six years now, and this is my first letter as before this there was not much to complain about. However of late I have noticed that the prices mentioned in hardware reviews are higher than online prices as a rule (I usually purchase from these sites and almost all of them include VAT) and even street prices. With a few exceptions, I believe, just the MRP is quoted. To add to that, prices of the same product are not consistent throughout the magazine if the product appears in multiple places (an example would be the graphics cards comparison in the July issue). What this does is reduce the effectiveness of assigning value, and renders the best value awards less credible. Another thing regarding software on the DVD is that many people including me do not like when beta versions are included. Beta is after all beta, and we would rather wait than have a beta version; not for chrome, not for Ubuntu. But lets not take away from the fact that otherwise CHIP is a great magazine to read and it was CHIP that made the techie in me blossom. I can proudly say that my coworkers ask for my help when our IT staff cannot resolve an issue. All this has been possible because of CHIP. Keep up the good work and keep inspiring youngsters. RAGHWENDRA SINGH Dear Raghwendra, Thanks for your feedback and appreciation. We do try to be as consistent as possible with prices, but there are market forces and geographic variations beyond our
Should You Bother?

BlackBerry Playbook HTC Sensation Nokia E6 Apple iMac Canon PowerShot SX230 IS Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum Asus O!Play Gallery Mac OS X Lion
motherboards, the price has been given as Rs 14,800. Please let me know if that is the correct price. The rest, as always, quenches my thirst for new technology. With Regards, - KRISHNA A Dear Krishna, Thanks for writing to us and pointing out the discrepancy in pricing. The price in the comparison test is correct. As for working with CHIP, there's no specific academic qualification, but yes, you do need a lot of talent, current knowledge, and work ethic. Email us your resume and we'll get back to you if there's a suitable spot vacant. TEAM CHIP
INCREDIBLE VALUE FOR RS 4,995! 11 digital cameras from 5 top brands THE BEST Z68 MOTHERBOARD 12 options for 2nd gen Intel Core CPUs
control. In fact we try to make sure that all prices reported in articles and reviews are the MRPs, to be fair in comparisons. On the other hand, prices in the Market Watch section are street/operating prices sourced from our network of dealers, which give consumers a realistic idea of what to expect in the market. With the advent of online retail, weve seen shops trying to offer a single price across the country, which of course will be higher than the retail average in some places and lower in others. That said, we do apologize again for the issue with the graphics card comparison, which was a regrettable typo. As for the DVD, we find in fact that most people are eager to try beta software, especially now that the tag is largely pointless. Beta browsers, for instance, are remarkably stable. Firefox 4 went through 12 betas in a very public process that took nearly a year, whereas just by changing their naming system, Mozilla has managed to release versions 4, 5 and 6 within months of each other. Still, we include only public betas and will ensure that they are correctly identified as such. TEAM CHIP
UID for the country

Dear Editor, I have been reading your magazine since I was in class XII thanks to my brother Apoorv, who inspired me to do so. Now that I'm pursuing engineering, I find it extremely useful for my career. I loved your article Adhaar, in which you described the project undertaken by the Government of India which aims to provide everyone with a unique identifier based on biometric profiles. I liked it because on the basis of this UID, no person can cheat the Government with malicious intent. Each and every person has a different biometric profile. You were right that ID proof such as ration cards are superficial and don't take into account fundamental aspects that set each Individual apart. It's important so that malicious people do not hide their identity in order to disrupt the peace of our country. - APEKSHA AGGARWAL, UTTAR PRADESH
Part of the team

Hi CHIP, I have been reading CHIP for the past five years and I must say it is getting better and better with every issue. You people are doing a wonderful job. I have always thought of asking how to work for
14
09/2011
NEWS SNIPPETS
NEWSWIRE
DANGER FORECAST
Attackers are focusing on large companies and even governments. Still, your home PC could be infected and used to carry out these attacks.
IN THE NEWS...
COMPILED BY JAMSHED AVARI
SOCIETY
After London riots, teens arrested for BBM abuse; San Francisco blacks out services to prevent violence
EXPENSIVE DATA THEFT

USA 143 Germany 124 France 83 Australia 80 UK 68
Lost data costs companies a lot of money. In the US and Germany, the value of lost data has been particularly high.
Source: Sophos
Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger are being blamed for enabling rioting youths in London to coordinate and plan their attacks during the recent outbreaks of civil violence in the city. The reaction comes on the back of media reports that the BlackBerry Messenger system is cheaper, more accessible and more private than Twitter, Facebook and other commonly used social networks. Recent research suggests that BlackBerrys have become increasingly popular with young people in many parts of the world because of the free BBM service. However, the impression that BBM messages are totally private might have led rioters to trust the service too much. Research In Motion has released statements
saying it will cooperate fully with British law enforcement agencies, but has not claried whether or not this involves handing over the contents of private messages. Many public Twitter and Facebook updates during the incidents referenced people calling others to specic locations at specic times using BBM, while others were confused by the sudden outbreak of broadcasted messages referencing violence and looting. Shortly after the outbreaks in London, public transport ofcials in San Francisco planned to block cellular and Wi-Fi coverage around subway stops in anticipation of a similar protest. Services were eventually not blocked, but the precedent for interrupting services might have been set.
THE SPEED OF AN ATTACK

100 GBit/s 80 GBit/s 60 GBit/s 40 GBit/s 20 GBit/s 0 GBit/s 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
BUSINESS
Google + Motorola to drive Android development

Google's multi-billion dollar acquisition of Motorola Mobility could have long-lasting ramications for the mobile phone industry. First of all, Google gains a competitive advantage by controlling Motorola's signicant patents and intellectual property. Google recently lost out on other high-prole patent acquisition bids. However, Google itself entering the branded handset market would put it into competition with its Android licencees, making it possible that the company might even spin off Motorola's hardware manufacturing facilities and turn it into a design and development house. Motorola's future handsets are almost certain to use the pure Android shell that Google favors, rather than the custom Motoblur social skin.
An average of 100 Gb of traffic per second is now needed to carry out a DDoS attack, the most common way to cripple a website. Source: Arbor Networks
FIGURE OF THE MONTH
South Koreans have had their social network profile information stolen. The country's population is 49m
Source: Sophos
35m
09/2011
16
SMS us!
Story code: NSN to 51818
NEWS SNIPPETS
HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT
NEWSWIRE
Ultrabooks price targets unrealistic, say Taiwanese manufacturers

Reports from Taiwan indicate that notebook manufacturers are having a hard time meeting Intel's $1,000 (approx Rs 45,380) recommended selling price for ultrabooks. The cost of construction and parts will squeeze prot margins, but any price above $1,000 will not help the products compete with Apple's MacBook Air. Ultrabooks are part of Intel's push towards thinner, lighter and always-on notebooks that can last a full day on a single battery charge and be as handy as a tablet. As per Intel's reference designs, devices that t the "ultrabook" tag could have metal or carbon ber bodies, be less than 0.8 inches thick, use an SSD instead of conventional storage, and potentially include a touchscreen. Still, Intel is understood to be unwilling to supply its chips to the manufacturers at lower rates. The company hopes that the "ultrabook" segment will account for 40 percent of notebook shipments in 2012. In order to promote the idea of ultrabooks, Intel is now set to invest $300 million in the hardware and software manufacturing industries. Asus and HP are widely expected to launch the rst models by October 2011, with Dell, Acer, Lenovo and others following shortly thereafter.
Adobe releases HTML5 authoring tool, Flash still in the running

Adobe is previewing a new Web development program called Edge, designed to help in the creation of Flash-like multimedia, including Web video, using HTML5 and other standardized tools. The company has till now ferociously defended its proprietary Flash platform, but is facing increasing competition from browser-native standards including HTML5. Edge will allow users to manipulate graphics and video on their websites using a simple interface resembling mainstream video editors. Flash is still unmatched for interactive applications such as games and video streams with overlays, however, Edge does give Adobe a stronger standing for the future. Web developers are increasingly moving away from Flash, which is often seen as resource-hungry and insecure. Most famously, Apple has never included Flash support for its mobile browsers and has dropped it from Safari on OS X as well.
BUSINESS
WEB
SOFTWARE
SECURITY
Google, Microsoft FB "six degrees" in Tweet war experiment

Google and Microsoft have found themselves at the center of a rush to purchase patent holders, in light of the number of IP infringement lawsuits being led around the world today. In the wake of a massive bidding war for Nortel's 6,000 patents, lawyers from the two companies have been engaging in a public Twitter spat. Google rst accused Microsoft of buying patents only to use them in anticompetitive lawsuits, and the software giant hit back by publishing mail records of an invitation to enter into a joint bid, which Google declined. Microsoft, Apple, RIM, EMC, Ericsson and Sony jointly won the Nortel patents with a bid of US$ 4.5 billion. Yahoo Research wants to test whether the "six degrees of separation" theory, posited in the 1960s, still holds true. Yahoo wants to use Facebook's 750 million connected users to see how close all of us really are to randomly selected strangers anywhere on Earth. Those who sign up will have to authorize a Facebook app and choose a friend who would most plausibly know the random target. If message passes between friends and reaches its target, the number of hops will be calculated.
Windows 8 prerelease soon
LulzSec leader Topiary arrested

Scotland Yard announced in late July that it had arrested a key member of the LulzSec hacker group, who had till then been known only by his screen name, "Topiary". The 19-year-
Microsoft plans to release a preview of Windows 8 in the "coming months". A new ofcal blog titled Building Windows 8 (go.chip.in/bw8) will prepare users for the changes in what Microsoft itself calls a complete reimagining of the OS. The strategy mirrors that of the Ofce 2007 release, which was remarkably smooth considering its massive interface overhaul. Microsoft is also being careful not to repeat its Vista-era missteps Windows is used by over a billion people worldwide.
old had become famous as the mouthpiece of LulzSec, publicly boasting about each of its achievements. Several other teenagers were also questioned or arrested. Initial reports of the arrest were followed by rumors that LulzSec had planted fake evidence that led police to arrest an innocent teenager, while the real Topiary was still evading the law. However the LulzSec Twitter account fell silent after Topiary's arrest, and his own account was wiped out the same day.
09/2011
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NEWS SNIPPETS
NEWSWIRE
SECURITY
HARDWARE
SECURITY
NEW SECURITY RISKS DETECTED AND PATCHED
HP kills WebOS, looking to sell off Malware steals PC business entirely cellphone photos
HP is on the verge of abandoning its entire consumer business and becoming an enterprise IT solutions company, the likes of Oracle and IBM. Barely a month after the launch of the WebOS-based TouchPad, CEO Leo Apotheker has announced that the company will be discontinuing all WebOS products as well as development of future products. HP paid $1.2 billion to acquire Palm last year, and will now have to consider whether it will sell or license its considerable assets and patents to a competitor, or simply let them languish. TouchPads have been discounted to as little as $99 to dispose of existing inventory. Apotheker has also announced plans to take HP out of the consumer space entirely. The company will consider spinning off or selling its Personal Systems Group, having already bought Autonomy Inc, an enterprise software outt, for $10 billion. Exiting the consumer space could be a reaction to the declining role of PCs and HP's failure to capture the tablet and consumer devices. F-Secure's Threat Response team has found a strain of malware originating from China that can steal photos from Symbian phones. The company warns that such malware could be used to obtain photos that are then used for blackmail or harassment. The trojan, codenamed Spinilog.A, is capable of "listening" in each time the phone camera is used, and saving a compressed copy of each captured image. Additionally, the trojan also captures calendar, contact, call and message details.
UNICODE
Unicode character U+202E, also known as right-to-left override, is being used to obfuscate file extensions to mask malware spread through email attachments. SOLUTION: Carefully examine file attachments, especially files inside ZIP or other archives. Pay attention to the file type, not just its icon and extension.
PHP
A number of bugs are promised to be fixed in the latest version 5.3.8, including bugs introduced in the previous security update, 5.3.7 which could cause errors in encryption operations. SOLUTION: An update, 5.3.8, is expected within days.
SECURITY
SECURITY
Disgruntled IT worker brings down 88 company servers

An American IT worker, Jason Cornish, has been convicted of hacking into his former employer's ofce and erasing the contents of 88 virtual servers, hosted on 15 different machines. The company affected, pharmaceutical major Shionogi, lost access to its own corporate email, BlackBerry servers, order tracking system and nancial management software, according to security researchers at Sophos. The company's American operations were paralyzed for several days, costing the company an estimated $800,000. Cornish was identied after investigators discovered the intrusion had originated from the free Wi-Fi at a McDonalds' restaurant. Cornish had paid for an order using his own credit card just ve minutes before the attack began. Cornish had been employed at Shionogi till mid 2010, and continued as a consultant, utilizing his knowledge of the company's systems. However that arrangement was terminated in 2010, but the company neglected to revoke his remote access credentials.
Fake videos of Winehouse death
MOZILLA FIREFOX
The extremely rapid update to version 6 brings a number of security improvements and user-visible URL shading, to highlight the actual domain a person is visiting. SOLUTION: Allow Firefox to update itself automatically, and a 9.8 MB patch will be downloaded and applied. The standalone install is a 28 MB file.
As was to be expected, fake links to supposedly shocking video clips of Amy Winehouse emerged shortly after her death. The subject lines of phishing emails and social media posts appealed to peoples' worst instincts. Those clicking on "Amy Winehouse overdose video leaked!!" or "Amy Winehouse getting high on crack just hours before she died" were obviously taken to phishing sites or referral surveys, which earn their owners. Also typical, rogue Facebook apps sent spam to people on victims' friends lists.
BLACKBERRY ENTERPRISE SERVER

A vulnerability with how the server processes TIFF and PNG image files could allow remote hackers to execute arbitary code on a BlackBerry phone. SOLUTON: Only BES server is affected, not the phones themselves. RIM has released updates to address the vulnerabilities.
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NEWS SNIPPETS
GADGETS SECURITY GADGETS WEB
NEWSWIRE
Google TV to run G+ profiles Android apps deleted at will?

Brand-new social network Google Plus is having its fair share of teething troubles. Despite a overall positive reaction, users have found that proles are being deleted at random, if the automated system suspects they aren't Google TV has mostly been a disappointment since its launch, with weak hardware support and no content from major broadcasters. Still, the platform isn't dead, and Google has announced an Android development kit that should let Android apps run on Google TV devices. As of now, developers can start creating apps suitable for TV screens and remote control input. A release date for the actual rmware is still unknown. genuine individuals. Under its terms of use, Google Plus may only be used by individuals and only under their legal names. No nicknames, creative spellings or corporate/branded accounts are allowed. The company is now rolling out a Twitter-like "Veried account" tag for celebrity and other popular accounts, with branded "pages" launching soon. Still, there have been reports of genuine accounts being deleted without cause or notice.
iPad 3 rumored for 2012 launch

The iPad 3 is rumored to be delayed until early 2012, rather than the late 2011 launch predicted for most of this year. The main reason for the delay is that Apple has decided to move to high-resolution 2048x1536 screens, quadruple the current resolution, bringing the iPad in line with the "Retina Display" screens introduced with the iPhone 4. The upgrade would strain the CPU and battery, indicating upgrades will be made in those areas as well. The move would give Apple a strong lead in the tablet space. The iPhone's screen has already been matched by rival Android models. High-res OS graphics have previously been detected in iOS 5 betas.
Bloatware on Download.com
Download.com has begun wrapping le installers in its own advertisement-laden packages. The site has had a positive reputation for over a decade, but the optional browser toolbars and advertising popups are ticked by default, even on free, opensource titles. CNet, which now owns Download.com, claims that the practice is in users' interests. Software vendors' involvement in the practice is still unknown.
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BUZZ LIST
MOBILE
WEB
CyanogenMod author joins Samsung

Steve Kondik, founder and author of the much-loved CyanogenMod for Android, has been snapped up by Samsung Mobile and will be working on the company's Android offerings. The news comes right after Google's bid to take over Motorola, which will undoubtedly spur competition in the Android handset space. CyanogenMod is a stripped down and more versatile of the most current Android OS, popular for stripping away unnecessary bloat such as third-party skins (as made popular by Motorola, Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson) as well as making updates available much faster than phone makers themselves do. Interestingly, Google's influence over Motorola is expected to result in its future phones shipping with a "pure" Android interface, rather than its custom Motoblur overlay.
More features, integration on the way for Google+

Google+ might have debuted to mixed responses, but the company has learnt its lesson from previous botched launches and has been precisely stage managing the rollout of each new feature. Google Games is now available to users around the world, giving the company enough time and space to emphasize its advantages over Facebook: less notification spam to those who don't care about gaming. Google has also now activated pubilc posts, which display friend activities related to pages in search results, but has managed to avoid the usual public outcry in the name of privacy which usually follows such changes to Google's algorithms. Search results from known blogs and news sources have also started displaying links to the authors' Google+ profiles, to promote worthy content.
TABLETS
Grid: a fresh new phone/tablet OS

Fusion Garage, makers of the ill-fated
LIST
BUZZ
The simple lowdown on what everyone's talking about this month
FUTURE TECH
Intel hires science fiction authors
JooJoo tablet (ne CrunchPad), have renamed themselves to TabCo and sprung a set of surprises: a tablet and a smartphone, both running the company's own brand-new GridOS. Based on the Android kernel, GridOS is largely compatible with existing Android apps, but its real strengths lie in its native apps and innovative interface. The home screen is one giant grid, which users can pan across. Apps can be grouped in adjacent cells for quick access. Context awareness is built into every aspect of the OS: relevant IMDB and Wikipedia links show up in search results, addresses and appointments can be tagged with real-time updates, and any highlighted text can be turned into a search query. The Grid 10 tablet has a 1366x768 screen, dual core Nvidia Tegra2 processor, webcam for video calling, and 3G radio.
Considering the number of things we take for granted today that have originated in science fiction, it should come as no surprise that realworld inventors are searching for new ideas in books and movies. Intel has begun commissioning authors to write science fiction stories, with the goal of beginning to describe a plausible vision for computing in the year 2020. The stories, all based on current research projects, describe a life in which computers learn more about our individual tastes and provide context-relevant information, medical sensors allow for new kinds of life-saving procedures, all vehicular traffic is automated and centrally controlled, robotic "virtual assistants" start looking a lot like real people, and we come dangerously close to becoming too reliant on machines, spending all our time philosophizing about the human condition. Read the stories online: go.chip.in/intfic.
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NEW PRODUCTS LAUNCHED
NEWSWIRE

GENIUS
connects computers to the Extender quickly and securely. Real-time link-rate LED locates the best placement spot to provide optimal wireless coverage. Genius has announced the most attractive LED notebook mouse, NX- Elite. It uses the next generation of auto transforming technology to keep shinning in the dark. Featuring an advanced 1200dpi optical sensor, the NX Elite has incredibly smooth tracking performance for cursor Step-by-step, graphical Installation Guide makes installation easy. No need to insert a CD or plug in Ethernet cables! Netgear green features include a Power on/off button and 80 percent recycled packaging.
the JetFlash T3S, in India. The ultraslim JetFlash T3S USB Flash Drive is feathery light, credit cardthin, and rugged enough to resist dust, stress, vibration, and even full water submersion. With its rigid metallic case and special COB packaging technology, the shiny silver ash drive is completely resistant to dust, shock and water. In addition to easy Plug and Play installation, the JetFlashT3S offers a free download of Transcend Elite data management tools. Available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities, Transcend Jetash T3S is compatible with Hi-Speed
Portable Mouse
PRICE: Rs 3,835 WEBSITE: www.netgear.com
SONY
movement to browse documents or Internet pages more efficiently. Plus its super mini size of 74mm is easy to store with the retractable cable. The lightweight design is ideal for any mini notebook and it provides more features than a notebook touch pad. It comes with a 3-year warranty.
Versatile Blu-ray player

Sony India has launched the Blu-ray player BDP-S380 that uses advanced 3D Blu-ray technology to deliver superior audio-visual experience. The BDP-S380 Blu-ray Disc player, a highly compatible device, is equipped to work with a wide variety of video formats including BD, DVD, CD, AVCHD, Xvid
USB 2.0 ports and offers a maximum write speed and a read speed, of up to 5 MB/s and 18 MB/s respectively.
PRICE: Rs 616 WEBSITE: www.geniusnet.com
PRICE: 4 GB: Rs 590; 8 GB: Rs 910; 16 GB: Rs 1,560 WEBSITE: in.transcend-info.com
MSI
NETGEAR
HD, JPEG and MP3. The BDP-S380 is equipped with Precision Cinema Upscale via HDMI feature that upscale DVD formats to near HD quality picture to enhance the visual quality of any video manifold. Another interesting
Wireless Range Extender

The Netgear Universal WiFi Range Extender allows you to keep your current wireless equipment and improve coverage to eliminate "dead zones", giving you the freedom to roam anywhere in the house and access the Internet without worrying about coverage. It is compatible with wireless b/g/n routers, gateways and Internet service providers devices. Four Ethernet ports enable you to connect to gaming consoles, Internet TVs, and Blu-ray players. Push N Connect using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)
Attractive Android tablets

MSI India has launched their Enjoy series tablets in India today. The Enjoy series would be available in two variants: Enjoy 10 (10 inch) and Enjoy 7 (7 inch). The new Enjoy series provides breakthrough brilliant new design and exceptionally fast performance with its 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 512 MB of RAM. This will translate into
feature is that if you are an iPhone, iPad or compatible Android phone user, then by downloading the free Media Remote app, you access all functions via this new remote control.
PRICE: Rs 8,990 WEBSITE: www.sony.co.in
TRANSCEND
Stylish Flash Drive

Transcend Information Inc has announced the launch of its tiny yet tough USB Flash drive,
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The products and services listed here have not been reviewed by IC-CHIP. These are not endorsements or recommendations. All prices, specifications and claims are as stated by the respective manufacturers and publicists.
NEWSWIRE
faster web browsing, movie experience, video calls, gaming etc. ARM Cortex A8 is a low power, high performance processor. Powerful hardware accelerators provide optimized hardware performance for high-end applications. Additionally, with front and rear cameras, people can also make live video calls. Users can access the Android market place to instantly access hundreds of thousands of apps. The tablet showcases the Gingerbread user experience, including an interactive, customizable home screen, notications, and tabbed browsing.
ENVISION
Earphones come equipped with three individually balanced speakers per ear, letting you enjoy the most detailed and sonically rich experience when listening to any style of music. Each sound frequency (low to high) is directed separately to its dedicated speaker. The stylish, compact metallic crush-proof case helps your earphones stay protected in your purse or pocket. . For mobile phone users, Ultimate Ears also introduced the TripleFi 10vi Noise-Isolating Earphones with Voice Capability, compatible with iPhone, Blackberry, and other phones.
Eye-Catching LED Monitor

Gigazone, a subsidiary of Gigabyte group, has launched their entire range of TFT monitor brands in India. Now their high-quality international brands Envision and Topview are available in India too. Envision has launched a new LED monitor P971wL, and P951w+ LCD monitor, with an outstanding, elegant design. P971wL has a 16:9 widescreen so you can watch your favorite movies without truncating images; the 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio offers super-sharp images and brighter whites, capturing all the details as nature intended and it is ecofriendly. For gamers and movie lovers, with built-in DVI port P951w+ provides speedier connectivity to videos and movies allowing you to play Xbox and PlayStation in uid quality. 5ms response time brings the cinematic experience into your living room.
PRICE: Enjoy 10: Rs 14,999; Enjoy 7: Rs 13,999. WEBSITE: in.msi.com
ASUS
Ultra slim netbook

Asus has introduced the worlds thinnest and lightest netbook, Asus X101. This super thin netbook runs on Intels MeeGo operating system for easy web usage and multimedia playback and is powered by the Intel Atom N455 CPU. Weighing less than 1 kg, this 17.6 mm thin netbook is apt for mobile computing. With a 10.1-inch LED-backlit monitor, it provides comfortable viewing. This Bluetooth 3.0 enabled netbook comes with a seamless chiclet keyboard. One of the most notable features is its Super Hybrid Engine (SHE), which is Asuss unique technology to optimize system performance and battery life. As far as connectivity is concerned it has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth. The Asus X101 is preloaded with Cloud Storage (Dropbox) for free to access and edit and also to easily sync les via cloud seamlessly.
PRICE: TripleFi 10: Rs 15,995; TripleFi 10vi: Rs 17,995 WEBSITE: www.logitech.com
WILEY
Mechanical Vibrations
Mechanical Vibrations is designed as a textbook for undergraduate students of mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, automobile and civil engineering at major universities. The text is also useful to postgraduate engineering students of mechanical vibrations. The book strengthens the necessary concepts of the topic for those willing to specialize in the fields of control engineering and system dynamics. It also helps a smooth understanding of the subject like rotor dynamics, for which the knowledge of vibration is a fundamental prerequisite. This book will also help practicing engineers, working in the field of vibration monitoring and control, to grasp their necessary theoretical back-ups.
PRICE: TBA WEBSITE: www.envisiondisplay.com
ULTIMATE EARS
Noiseisolating earphones
Ultimate Ears, a Logitech business unit, has announced its new noise-isolating earphones in India. These earphones are designed to deliver the ultimate in sound quality to music lovers, allowing them to listen to every detail in their favorite music without any disturbance from the external noise. The Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10 Noise-Isolating
PRICE: Rs 12,499 WEBSITE: in.asus.com
PRICE: 399 WEBSITE: www.wiley.com

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FEATURE
Intel Classmate PC: Innovation in Education

Intel, with its range of Classmate PCs and educational content, is aiming to change the way education is imparted. BY PRIYANKA TILVE
ntel, a trusted and world renowned name in the arena of information technology, is set to revolutionize
available solutions are either designed for an older audience or handed down from adults. The Classmate PC is a purposebuilt education netbook targeted towards primary school students. Keeping in mind its young target audience, the products have been vigorously tested. They have been designed to withstand accidental drops from desk height, are water resistant, have rubberized surfaces and handles for durability and better portability. These power-efficient netbooks built using Intel Atom technology are available in clamshell and convertible formats. The convertible version features a studentfriendly design, swivel screen, built-in rotatable camera, and features that allow intuitive, comfortable reading, writing, and drawing. These Classmate PCs have already been deployed in countries like Argentina, Malaysia, Venezuela, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Palestine, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and Uruguay, just to name a few, and they have seen a phenomenal response the world over, with millions of units sold to date. Educators are addressing the need to prepare todays students for a world that is knowledge and information driven. But todays schools are often resource-challenged. Teachers need tools to be more exible and more efficient. Governments want to make sure the
competition, and thats why 1:1 e-learning is considered ideal, says Singh. He states further, The Intel Learning Series ecosystem consists of vendors who offer many different types of content that support both curriculum and supplemental learning. All the existing software that is in the market will work seamlessly or with minimal change on the Classmate PC since they are fully functional computers that run standard operating systems, and so are able to run education-specic and mainstream software. They have enough storage for students to create multimedia presentations and save their work. In addition to the education programs students use, Intel-powered Classmate PCs include special applications to make classroom management and IT management easier and to help teachers fully utilize the PCs in their lessons. The deployment of Classmate PC is India has been limited so far. One of the early instances of adoption of Classmate PC was in 2009, when it was successfully used by the Centre for Wildlife Studies. The sturdy Classmate PC came in handy while conducting intensive eld studies to understand the population dynamics of critically endangered tiger species in Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka. Talking about the plans for India, Singh says, In India, we have limited deployments to the government and private school segments so far. In the private segment, we are working with established education solution providers like Educomp. We have also been working with various governments in showcasing the advantages of 1:1 e-learning.
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the way education is imparted to young children through its Intel Learning Series. Though children adapt to technology with ease, there are not enough efforts being made towards incorporating technology as a tool to impart education. Realizing this, Intel launched Classmate PCs that are affordable, rugged and fun netbooks designed for interactive, collaborative learning. Speaking about the initiative, Ajit Singh, director of the Education Market Platforms group for APAC at Intel, says, Intel has been instrumental in driving the adoption of 1:1 e-learning. Its not enough to just put computers in schools. The Intel-powered convertible Classmate PC has been developed from the ground up to meet the specic needs of classroom learning for the 21st century. Typically, the primary school segment has been underserved by technology. Most of the
A Classmate PC running software to teach math concepts using familiar objects such as coins.
next-generation workforce is prepared for global
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FEATURE
Keeping Internet Pirates at Bay

BY PRIYANKA TILVE
Sachin Pandit
Piracy has become so commonplace these days that the extent of it doesnt even shock us anymore. So much so that we almost seem to have forgotten that it is, in fact, illegal.
played on the DVD player with a scroll that read Downloaded from songs.pk. Im sure most of you are familiar with this site, as it happens to be the most popular site to illegally download the latest Bollywood chartbusters. There are a dozen other sites from where you can easily download the latest songs, copyrights notwithstanding. If you say that you have never downloaded music from these sites, but get them from your friends instead, that doesnt make you any less guilty of piracy. Downloading cracked versions of software and the latest movies and music has become a childs play.
ast week, I walked into a reputed electronics showroom and was surprised to see a song being
A survey conducted by the Motion Picture Distributors Association in 2010 revealed that India ranked fourth in the world when it came to illegal movie downloads. Piracy of movies and music, in particular, has far reaching effects that most of us cant imagine or arent willing to bother with. First off, movie piracy is the copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property. Secondly, piracy directly affects the entertainment industry, which has to suffer tremendous losses; not to mention jobs cuts. One school of thought even argues that piracy funds terrorism. Lamenting the rampant Internet piracy, Siddhartha Roy, COO of the consumer business and allied services at Hungama Digital Media, says, Piracy
is a global deterrent; more than 90% of new releases in entertainment end up available through pirated CDs and on Internet sites or P2P platforms. Music and movie piracy has become rampant across the Internet. Domestically, the piracy nexus has managed to create a strong foothold terrestrially as well, especially in tier I, II and III towns in India. The entertainment industry as a whole is facing a challenge to bring together an ecosystem to control piracy, which again will support legitimate revenue ow towards a genuine entertainment distribution market. Reliance Big Pictures recently took the pre-emptive measure of obtaining a John Doe order form the Delhi High Court to curb the piracy of its lm
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of such initiatives. One of them is making content available for downloaded legally at reasonable prices. In 2010, Hungama.com launched the largest on-demand digital entertainment storefront that offers audio, video and images for download. While the response was a bit slow in the beginning, it has picked up considerably. Talking about this unique initiative, Roy says, One needs to bring in a new value system to counter piracy. Consumers will buy the content as long as it gives quality and convenience at a reasonable price. The response on Hungama.com has been very encouraging. With millions of downloads month on
Hungama.com, launched in 2010, is one of the largest on-demand Digital Entertainment storefronts that offers audio, video and images for download.
month, consumers are eager and willing to use the service. On the other hand, we also work with over 350 content partners and these partners have been eager to support a service such as ours. We have also now taken the offering onto various connected devices - mobile phones, PCs, tablets and televisions. Here too the response has been encouraging. Hungama.com has also entered into a strategic alliance with Intel, called Intel Insider, wherein they offer HD quality movies for both streaming and download. Apart from this, a few artists and lmmakers have taken proactive steps to sell their music and lms online. One of the Bollywood lms to sell music online was F.A.L.T.U, produced by Vashu Bhagnani. Leading English TV channel Star World recently launched a unique initiative called Torrentz, which will showcase some of the latest Western shows every weekend. Elaborating on this initiative, Saurabh Yagnik, general manager and Senior VP of English channels at Star India, said, With the accelerated growth of the Internet and the digital medium, the consumer is inevitably spoilt for choice. It is, therefore, imperative for us as broadcasters to satiate our viewers needs in order to discourage Internet piracy. Star World Torrentz was conceptualized through the process of constant engagement with our viewers and insights about their preferences. He further added, With this initiative, we sincerely urge our viewers to abstain from indulging in piracy and have a world class and trouble-free viewing experience of the best of Hollywood absolutely fresh on Star World.
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Singham. A John Doe order is granted against anonymous prospective offenders. This meant that action would be taken against anyone found selling, sharing, or downloading Singham either terrestrially or over the Internet. After this order was issued, many Internet service providers blocked access to le sharing sites altogether, which created quite a furor in cyber space. People argued that the sites were not meant just to spread piracy and so blocking them wouldnt curb it altogether. Additionally, those involved in actual piracy could easily breach the barriers and access the sites by various means.
He states further, However, one of the biggest drawbacks of the IT Rules 2011 is that no distinct penal provisions are provided in case someone does not comply with the provisions thereof. I believe that India needs to come up with a distinct legal regime against online piracy. We have not seen a single case where any prosecution has been launched in the event of non-compliance with the terms of the IT Rules 2011. On the other hand, efforts are being made to create rights for the artists themselves. Roy says, The Indian government, as well as the industry, is working on several ways to withstand this intellectual property theft. The lack of proper patent laws allows the perpetrators of these crimes to get away at no cost. The Copyright Amendment Bill 2010 seeks to amend The Copyright Amendment Act 1957 by creating rights for music composers, lyricists and singers. Once passed, the Bill would bring in a paradigm shift in the Indian music industry, where, thus far, the rights are owned by the music companies.
Laws Against Piracy

Pavan Duggal, an advocate at the Supreme Court, believes that blocking of sites is at most a temporary solution, likening it to putting a band-aid on a leaking roof. Advocating the requirement of stronger laws, he says, When you talk about online piracy, there are no direct laws that cover it in India. In fact, if you look at the Information Technology Act of 2000, it is silent on online piracy. However, the government has come up with new rules known as the Information Technology Rules 2011 that have become effective from April 2011. Under these rules, if anybody nds that his intellectual property is made available by a service provider, then he can write to the service provider and have it removed. In such a case, any intermediary is duty bound to act within 36 hours and further to work with the user of such content so as to remove such offending content from its platform.
The Way Forward

Piracy, especially Internet piracy, is a very complex issue. Most people who have access to content downloaded from the Internet nd nothing wrong in it, as they argue that they were not the ones who downloaded it, but were instead given the content by someone else. It will take a lot of work to change this mindset. At the same time, the industry has to come together and think of innovative ways to address the problem of piracy. In the last couple of years, we have seen a couple
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FEATURE
Do Not Disturb: A Distant Dream?

Mobile users are plagued with promotional calls and SMSs. While some of it may be our own doing, were largely at the receiving end of unsolicited promotional activities. BY PRIYANKA TILVE
Chaitanya Surpur
ou have won a lottery of 100 million dollars, SMS your bank account details to Mr. Donald
million at the end of May 2011 from 861.48 million at the end of April 2011, thereby registering a growth rate of 1.53%. Looking at its reach, its not surprising therefore that it presents a very attractive medium for marketers to reach prospective consumers. Another point of consideration is that while a person may or may not check his or her email, its harder for them to ignore a call or even an SMS. How these telemarketers get our numbers is anybodys guess.
opting for DND meant that the consumer would not receive any form of UCC, but it was found that people did not readily opt for DND, as they wished to receive some promotional information. Further amendments were made to make it more robust and consumers can now opt for services they wish to receive communication from. These are broadly classied as Health, Education, Tourism & Leisure, Banking/ Insurance/Financial Products, Consumer Goods & Automobiles, Real Estate and Communication/Broadcasting/ Entertainment/IT. You can now opt for a full or partial DND based on your choices. Your selection will not affect receipt of service SMS like your bank transaction details, credit/debit notications, etc.
at the earliest. Worried about hair loss? SMS to nd a solution. Change your destiny. SMS to nd out more. These are just some of the ridiculous spam text messages that many of you may have received, apart from annoying phone calls asking if you want a credit card or an interest-free personal loan. But why are we subjected to these SMSs and calls, termed as unsolicited commercial communication (UCC)? The answer lies in the numbers. According to a recent Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 874.68
What is DND?
After a rise in the number of complaints from consumers, the TRAI went about setting up a National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry in 2007. Back then
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To register for DND you can call on the toll free number 1909 form the number you wish to register and then follow the IVR to compete the registration process. You can also register through SMS by texting START 0 to 1909 in case of full DND and Start 1 to 1909 in case of partial DND. Here 1 stands for Health. If you wish to receive SMS about travel and leisure then text Start 3 and so on. You can also choose more than one services by stating their numbers separated by a comma. DND will be effective in seven days from the date of registering. At any given point of time, you can easily deregister yourself from the DND by same means.
LIST OF CODES FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

Aircel Cellular Ltd Bharti Airtel Ltd Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd BPL / Loop Telecom Pvt. Ltd Idea Cellular Ltd Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd Reliance Communications Ltd Reliance Telecom Ltd Spice Communications Ltd Tata Teleservices Ltd Vodafone Group of Companies D A B L I M R E P T V
second alphabet identies the service area. This helps for easy identication of the telemarketer.
What can be done?

Telemarketers get their data from a number of sources. You may give out your number yourself in malls, promotional activities, contests, etc. If you use certain sites that allow you to send free SMS then thats also how you can be spammed. And it wont be just you, but it would also include all the people you sent out the SMS to. So be careful when using such sites. Apart from this, there are several mobile apps that allow you to block/lter SMS. These include Handcent, Kaspersky Mobile Security, and McAfee Mobile Security, to name a few. If you opt for DND and even then receive UCC, you can report the same to your telecom service provider, but this must be done within three days of receiving the UCC. Your telecom provider is then obligated to investigate the same and, if found to be correct, then the telemarketer will be penalized for the same. But many consumers dont actually report the matter and continue to suffer in silence. The BJP, through its Telecom Consumer Cell, has given a whole different spin to the entire issue. What they proposed to the TRAI is that instead of a DND, there should be a do-call registry. A person opting for the do-call registry should receive Rs 5 for every UCC SMS and Rs 10 for every UCC voice call. Sanjay Bhalla, the national convener of the BJP Telecom Consumer Cell, explains, By law, the cell phone is the private property of the telecom consumer. Therefore, it is the consumers right to be paid for the usage of the private resource by the access provider/telemarketer. Its a trouble-free process wherein the telemarketers will deposit the compensation amount in the account of the operator, which will then be automatically credited to the consumers account for UCC. This will mean that, to a great extent, the consumers actual usage charges will be taken care of. Thus, the deal is benecial for both, the telecom consumers and service providers. TRAI has appreciated the move, but hasnt acted on it so far.
[email protected]
The menace continues

Despite of having registered for DND, its quite possible that you may continue to receive SMS, if not calls. and there can be many reasons for this. One of them could be that the telemarketers are not scrubbing their data regularly. As per TRAI rules, every telemarketer needs to register itself and then apply for telecom resources from one or more access providers. Before sending any SMS or UCC, it is mandatory for the telemarketer to scrub the telephone number of the subscriber with the database received from the DND registry. Apart from this, Rajan S Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India, says, The telemarketer needs to ensure that no telemarketing call or SMS, other than those opted for by the subscriber, is sent to him. Also, as per the agreement with the access providers, in case telemarketers send UCC to subscribers who have opted for DND, then the access provider can deduct a xed amount from the security deposited with them. This amount ranges from Rs 25,000 for rst offence to Rs 2,50,000 for the sixth offence. Also, the telemarketers can send SMS or make calls only between 9 am and 9 pm. To further simplify the process of identication of the telemarketer, the TRAI proposed providing telemarketers with separate numbers. Rajan says, Initially, the TRAI had allocated 70XXXXXXXX series to the telemarketer. However, in order to ensure better utilization of the 70XXXXXXXX, TRAI allocated separate series i.e.
LIST OF CODES FOR SERVICE AREA

Andhra Pradesh Delhi Gujarat Haryana Karnataka Kerala Kolkata Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Mumbai Chennai A D G H X L K Y Z M T
140XXXXXXXX for the mobile originated telemarketing calls. The major objective of the TRAI to have separate series was to give choice to the consumer i.e. any call that comes from a number beginning with 140XXXXXX will be a commercial call and the customer has the choice of receiving or not receiving the call. Therefore, even a customer who chooses not to register at all will have a choice. Likewise, a unique SMS header has been mandated for easy identication of commercial SMSs. This matter is now with the DoT and it is yet to allocate a unique number for xed lines. At present, you can identify telemarketers with the help of the alphanumeric identier of all commercial SMSs that are not sent from a normal ten digit number. For instance if you received a SMS from LM Ahore, then here L stands for BPL or Loop Telecom and M will mean Mumbai. So the rst alphabet identies the operator while the
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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
VERDICT
XXXXX
APU
AMD A8-3850
VERDICT: A stellar rst step on the road to complete APU integration FOR: Superb onboard graphics core enables a powerful yet compact system AGAINST: High price, last-generation CPU core
W
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
eve already been introduced to the E series, AMDsLAPTOP Fusion lineup, entry-level which has made quite a mark in the
a second discrete Radeon GPU, so were expected to gauge performance by comparing these directly with existing Radeon model numbers. Once were beyond that, we come to the APUs actual features. A-series chips meant for laptops will have lower power envelopes and therefore lower clock speeds, but were looking at only the desktop lineup just now. Two versions will be available at launch, the 2.9 GHz A8-3850, and the 2.6 GHz A6-3650. Both have four cores, a 100W TDP, but the A8 has a faster IGP. Each CPU core has 1 MB of L2 cache, but a common L3 cache is totally absent. isnt exactly revolutionary, its promoting the graphics component, hence the numerous references to vision. The A-series APUs come with the strongest ever specs for an integrated graphics core: up to 400 shader cores, full DirectX 11 support, 8x MSAA, tessellation, and the UVD3 video encoding acceleration logic. While these specs are close to those of a decent entry-level graphics card today, the embedded graphics core runs considerably slower, and has to share the systems RAM, which is much slower and takes longer to access. Current Llano APUs will support two simultaneous display outputs, which should be useful to a number of people. Blocks of logic for the memory and I/O controllers complete the architectural picture. Llanos main strengthsaccording to AMDwill be HD video with features passed down from discrete cards, GPU-accelerated parallel computing, and, for its mobile variants, all-day battery life. The last point is important for AMD, as it hasnt had a competitive enough mobile platform in a very long time. In terms of power saving, Llano improves upon Phenom and Turion CPUs by gating power to individual CPU cores
budget laptop and desktop space. Those chips, formerly codenamed Zacate and Ontario, take integrated graphics to a whole new level, with impressively low power consumption to boot.
XXXX
FOR: XXX AGAINST: XXXX in the form of the A series for mainstream desktops
and notebooks, formerly codenamed Llano. These APUs (Accelerated Processing XXXXXX theyre Units) as called, also feature powerful integrated graphics XXXx AMD has elected to match current-gen Radeon graphics silicon with older Phenom-era CPU cores.
The second wave of the Fusion attack is now here,
Perhaps capabilities, but instead of a brand new architecture, - [email protected] because AMD knows its CPU architecture
Tweaks and improvements do give the A series some performance advantages over Phenom II chips, but the combination has a few interesting consequences. First of all, theres utter confusion in naming the products. Not only do the products not have a brand name, but there are different model numbers for the different combinations of APU and discrete GPU. For instance, you might set out to buy an A8-3850, and might even know that its built-in graphics core is tagged
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs XXX
www.XXXX.XXXX
Radeon HD 6550D (and it will additionally have stickers describing it as Quad Core with Radeon Graphics and A8 Vision, but you might also come across branded desktops labeled Radeon HD 6xxxD2 with the sticker Quad Core with Dual Radeon Graphics. This means the new integrated chip has been paired with
XXXXX: XXXXXX;
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
XXX XXX XXX
RATINGS
BUILD QUALITY ERGONOMICS FEATURES PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
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SMS us!
Story code: HCI to 51818
TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
VERDICT
as well as the IGP and UVD blocks, shutting them down completely when not required. AMD promises over 10 hours of battery life for a mainstream laptopenough to watch two Blu-ray discswhile the laptop stays cool enough to sit on your lap. The platform Back to the desktop, the new A6 and A8 APUs will require an all-new socket, primarily in order to support video output paths from the APU to the motherboards rear panel. While the Socket FM1 package is brand new, upgraders will appreciate the fact that older coolers will still t and work perfectly well. Compared to AMDs previous generation of chipsets though, the new A75 offering differs only in its support for USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA. A cheaper A55 chipset drops the newer IO standards, and we dont expect standalone A55 motherboards will be very popular. One of the platforms biggest selling points will be the ability to pair the integrated graphics core with a LAPTOP discrete Radeon card. A8 and A6 APUs will work with midrange 6-series Radeon cards, which means that users will be able to add a graphics card later and combine its power with the IGP, rather than choosing between the two, a weakness that current Intel Performance mode, again with no AA. Scale back the resolution a little and youll be able to play with better image quality settings. The highest resolution we ever tried even with Sandy Bridges integrated graphics was 1024x768. That said, if a compact system isnt super high on your priority list and if you can juggle your budget around a little, you might actually be better served by buying an Intel CPU and a discrete graphics card. When we tested our A8-3850 with a Radeon 6870 on top, we got much higher frame rates with the effects and visual quality settings pushed up quite far. This makes a compelling case for a small formfactor PC, especially one powering a home media center. On the other hand, without the benet of its XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Radeon core, Llanos performance didnt justify its price in comparison even to the Phenom II X4 945, just a few hundred rupees more. If youre going to use a graphics card anyway, skip the budget APU and either buy an Intel CPU or wait for Bulldozer.
Extra pins are required for the integrated graphics core, so Llano chips have nothing in common with their Phenom predecessors.
XXXXX
XXXX
FOR: XXXsuffer. platforms AGAINST: XXXX
The numbers
GamingXXXXXX quality settings without a graphics at decent card? We had to put these claims to the test. Our XXXx sample A8-3850 chip arrived with a matching - [email protected] Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H motherboard, and we outtted the pair with 4 GB of Corsair XMS3 running at a speed of 1066 MHz, representing the platforms target market. The CPU-intensive PCMark Vantage gave us a score of 9466 overall, and 10568 in the gaming subsection, which puts its capabilities somewhere near current-generation Intel Core i3s, but nowhere near even the last generations Core i5s, and surprisingly just a little better than the Phenom II X4. Things turn around when we get to gaming, though. The Llano chip handily beats Intels integrated offerings, giving us very playable framerates: 35.68 fps in Left 4 Dead, at 1920x1080, low detail, and no AA, and 30.84 fps in Crysis Warhead at 1920x1080 in
Conclusion
The Llano approach is more of a combination of existing parts than a fresh ground-up design. By comparison, Intels latest Sandy Bridge generation does a lot more to combine the strengths of its various integrated components and help them communicate with each other. The rst APUs off the starting block are a mixed bagthey present an intriguing new option in the CPU vs GPU SPECIFICATIONS power war, but the end result of the experiment Rsa is XXX together. Next years model, codenamed Trinity,
CONTACT
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 6,900
www.amd.com
www.XXXX.XXXX
CPU clock speed: 2.9GHz; Cores: 4; TDP: 100W; Total L2 Cache: 4MB; Radeon cores: 400 (600 MHz); Memory support: DDR3, 1866 MHz
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
combination of parts that dont work spectacularly will use brand-new Bulldozer CPU cores and will PHONE
XXXXX: XXXXXX;
XXX XXX XXX
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) 0124-4696000 NA
EMAIL hopefully have more raw processing muscle. Despite
RATINGS
FEATURES PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
the long wait and all their promise, these rstRATINGS BUILD QUALITY generation Llano APUs are just a little too late to launch, and too weak to get excited about. FEATURES
ERGONOMICS
-PERFORMANCE Anand Tuliani - OVERALL RATING Jamshed Avari

VALUE FOR MONEY
09/2011
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TABLET
HTC FLYER
FOR: Great build, slick interface. AGAINST: Expensive, average media performance, poor camera.
he HTC Flyer unibody aluminium frame coupled
to the rescue for SD les, but HD was still problematic. The HTC music player is redesigned for the larger screen, and supports SRS sound enhancement along with some equalizer presets. With a decent pair of earphones, music sounds really good, with punchy bass and clear mids and highs. HTC has only launched the 3G version in India, and it has full HSDPA and HSUPA 3G support, along with EDGE/GPRS and Wi-Fi N. While standard Google apps are preloaded, the HTC Hub lets you download additional apps. The default browser does a good job of rendering Web pages, which look really good on this screen. There is a way to send and receive messages via the Flyer, but phone calls are a no-go. The 5 megapixel shooter is devoid of a ash, so indoor shots are not very good, but thanks to auto-focus, so some level of detail is preserved. Even in day light, however, the picture quality is just about average. The Flyer supports 720p recording at 30 fps, but this only looks good on paper. Recorded video is horribly jerky and certainly not 30 fps. With Web and media usage, we managed to get a full days worth of battery life, which is decent, but we expected a lot better. The HTC Flyer is priced at an absurdly high Rs 39,890. Spend a little more money and you can get the equivalent versions of the Motorola Xoom or the iPad 2, which are much more powerful tablets with larger screens. It may have a speedy processor but sadly that power is not harnessed properly. -Roydon Cerejo
with the right choice of
plastics makes it one of the best looking tablets in the market. The build is excellent, with all buttons, ports and removable parts lined up perfectly. The 7-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel resolution capacitive screen doesnt use Gorilla Glass or any oleophobic coating, so nger prints can be a nightmare. It is powered by Qualcomms Snapgragon MSM8255T (ARM v7) single core processor running at 1.5GHz. This, coupled with HTCs Sense UI 2.1, makes for a very good user experience. The interface is slick, with lots of fancy animations all over the place. The new shortcut bar, similar to the Icon Dock in iOS, gives you quick access to most used apps irrespective of which home screen youre on. The notication bar is now divided into three sections - ten most recently used apps, notications like alerts and new messages, and Quick Settings. The default keyboard is very comfortable to use, with good spacing between the keys even in portrait mode. The Flyer employs
The Flyer employs a AAAA battery-powered digital pen.
a AAAA battery-powered digital pen, and you can use it virtually anywhere other than the lock screen. This tablet comes with 32 GB built-in memory, but the actual storage available is only about 19 GB. Video formats like 3GP, MP4, WMV, AVI and XVID are supported out of the box, but surprisingly, the default player wasnt able to play SD les smoothly. Moboplayer comes
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 43,500
www.htc.com/in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 195.4 x 122 x 13.2 mm; Weight: 421 g; OS: Android v2.3.3 Gingerbread; Processor: 1.5 GHz; Memory: 1 GB RAM, 32 GB internal; Display: 7-inch LCD, 600 x 1024; Camera: 5 MP; Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN b/g, Bluetooth, micro USB; Battery: 1470 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
HTC India 011-66567000 [email protected]
VERDICT
RATINGS
HTCS TABLET DEBUT IS MARRED BY AN OBSCENE PRICE TAG.

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DIGITAL SLR CAMERA
CANON EOS 600D

FOR: Great image quality, small size and sturdy build, up to ISO 6400, intuitive UI. AGAINST: Average video recording.
he Canon EOS 600D has an 18 megapixel APS-C size CMOS sensor - the same found on the
modes, and there is no resistance while scrolling through it. The connectivity options include a mini HDMI port and a mini USB port. In testing, there was no noticeable noise at ISO 100, but some was visible starting from ISO 400 though it was negligible. From ISO 1600, colors start to get paler, with some amount of noise seen. At ISO 6400, the noise levels were high and we recommend it only for extremely low light conditions. With aperture set to F3.5, the contrast and depth of eld is the most. Images show a shallow depth of eld even when the object being used isnt very wide. With aperture at F22, the image is sharp across the target, but colors, for some reason, appear paler. There is a visible color change when the ash is red. White balance seems to shift drastically and the image appears bluish. Focusing seemed sharper with the ash enabled, most likely because of a smaller aperture size. Outdoor images shot really well, with a lot of detail. Colors looked natural, with no fringing. The EOS 600D can record full HD videos at 30 fps, and 720p clips at a smooth 60 fps. Video recorded at 1080p had some focusing issues, and upon playback, appeared grainy, which was disappointing. At Rs 49,460, the Canon EOS 600D is a really great camera with good design, a sturdy build, exhaustive features, and impressive performance. - Aaron Almeida
The ip-out display, along with live view, makes shooting from odd angles easy.
EOS 550D. It sports a 3-inch ip-out TFT colour LCD display, which can be rotated for low or high angle shots. The camera features a DIGIC 4 processor, which handles noise reduction and supports large 14-bit RAW images. ISO sensitivities have been bumped up from the 3200 on the 550D to 6400, which should make clicking photos in low-lit areas easy. The camera features a 9-point focus zone, which makes auto focusing quick and also gives the user more focus points to choose from. The EOS 600D features a Canon EF lens mount, which makes it compatible with EF and EF-S lenses. Bundled along is an 18 - 55 mm EF-S lens with image stabilization functionality. The interface is easy to navigate. All settings are available on the screen, such as ISO sensitivity, aperture settings, white balance etc. The interface is really smooth, but while maneuvering through the ISO sensitivities, having to press the right button to navigate to the next line was a little inconvenient. This is one of the smaller-sized DSLRs. The body is made of a matte black nish and a textured rubberized surface at the front and a small area at the rear for better grip. The controls are located to the left of the screen and can be easily adjusted with the right hand. The rubber padding around the viewnder acts as a cushion while viewing through it. The dial at the top is loaded with the different camera
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 67,990
www.canon.co.in
Weight: 570 g; Resolution: 18 megapixels; LCD display: 3 in, 1040k dots; ISO range: 100 - 6400; Shutter speed: 30 - 1/4000 sec; Video: 1080p @30fps.
CONTACT PHONE
VERDICT
EMAIL
Canon India 0124 -4160000 [email protected]
A GREAT ALL-ROUND DSLR FOR THE SERIOUS PHOTOGRAPHER.
RATINGS
09/2011
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SMARTPHONE
DELL XCD35
FOR: Crisp, hi-res display, decent build quality. AGAINST: Weak processor, stock UI, sluggish performance.
he XCD35 doesnt make a great rst impression; it looks plasticky and a bit cheap, but the build is
some useful apps, such as Documents to Go, RemoSync, which helps you connect to Microsoft Exchange Server using ActiveSync protocols, and Dells U-Connect for Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo Messenger. The camera interface is surprisingly slick and packs in lots of options. A little vertical strip of icons gives you quick access to focus mode, GeoTagging, white balance and zoom. Indoor picture quality is average due to the lack of a ash, while outdoor pics are somewhat better and the auto-focus helps in capturing a decent amount of detail. The video recorder records up to VGA resolution for a maximum of 30 minutes, and you can choose from a variety of codecs to encode in. The video output is a little jerky but passable. The XCD35 packs in a 1250mAh Li-Ion battery, which under regular use, gave us about a day and half of battery life. In our video drain test, we played back MP4 les in a loop till the phone died. Here, the XCD35 managed 8 hours and 30 minutes, which is not bad at all. At Rs 10,990, the XCD35 is a very tempting proposition, but we still wouldnt recommend it. The biggest ace up Dells sleeve is the high resolution screen, which no phone in this price bracket can match. The build is quite good as well and feels really good in your hand. But the main problem with the XCD35 is the slow processor. The phone is sluggish even when browsing through the menus, and the stock player cannot even handle SD videos properly. - Roydon Cerejo
not bad. It features a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, and its the only Android phone in this price range to sport a 480x800 pixel resolution. It ships with the stock version of Android 2.2 aka Froyo, but even then, the UI is quite sloppy. The animations are not smooth and it just feels slow. Go Launcher helps quite a bit, but a lingering sense of lag is still present. Dell gives you two options for keyboards, the stock Android one and TouchPal, which offers more settings. The stock video player can read MP4/H.264/H.263/AVI les, but even playing standard denition videos was a challenge. The stock audio player is not great, as it doesnt offer any sort of sound enhancement options, and the bundled earphones are laughable. Theres also FM Radio built-in. The phone supports HSDPA (7.2 Mbps) but no HSUPA. Theres also EDGE, Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP support. The A-GPS feature works noticeably slower than higher end Android handsets. Standard Google apps are preloaded. Browsing is handled by the stock Android browser. The rendering is done well, but once again, the phone is plagued by the slower processor. Pages
SPECIFICATIONS
look good thanks to the great screen, and pinch-to-zoom works well as well. One major issue as that when the phone is connected to the PC to transfer data or to charge, the touch panel stops responding, making the phone unusable. While Dell hasnt provided any custom UI for the XCD35, they have bundled
Rs 10,990
www.dell.co.in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 114 x 56 x 12.2 mm; Weight: 120 g; OS: Android v2.1 clair; Processor: ARM 11 600 MHz; Memory: 256 MB RAM, 200 MB internal; Display: 3.5-inch TFT, 480 x 800; Camera: 3.15 MP; Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN b/g, Bluetooth, micro USB; Battery: 1250 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Dell India Pvt Ltd 1800-425-4026 NA
VERDICT
RATINGS
TOO SLUGGISH EVEN FOR AN ENTRYLEVEL ANDROID PHONE.

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SMARTPHONE
LG OPTIMUS BLACK P970

FOR: Great battery life, good camera, impressive music playback. AGAINST: Flimsy build, poor video recording.
he Optimus Black is a good looking piece of hardware no doubt, but far from sturdy. A
Being a 3G enabled device, Internet speed is not an issue. Other connectivity features include Wi-Fi with hotspot capabilities, DLNA support, Bluetooth with A2DP +EDR, and USB 2.0. With Flash 10.3 support, the native browser does a good job both visually and functionally. LGs Facebook, MySpace and Twitter apps work just ne, and theres a widget that integrates all three. The phone is equipped with a GPS module, with Google Maps to go with it. The 5 megapixel autofocus camera (with LED ash) has a slew of handy features, including face detection, manual focus, ISO levels and plenty of shooting modes. The lack of a shutter release button, however, was disappointing. Image quality was quite good. Although the depth of colors was just a little off, image sharpness was good. While the Optimus Black can capture video at 720p, the results arent great. Captured videos look like standard 16:9 video squashed down vertically to look like 21:10. The 1500mAh battery was able to squeeze out a little over a day and a half of heavy usage, which is impressive. At an affordable Rs 19,990, the LG Optimus Black is the handset to beat in this range, and hopefully with the Gingerbread update, it will get even better. If stylish design is important to you, then this is a great buy. Just make sure you get a good case for it to prevent damage if youre the clumsy type. -Shayne Rana
The 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED ash is capable of capturing video at 720p.
light drop (unintentional, we assure you) actually chipped off a part of the bezel, but left the Gorilla Glass display unscathed. The 4-inch NOVA in-plane switching) capacitive display sports a 480 x 800-pixel resolution. The phone is equipped with a 1 GHz Cortex-A8 processor and runs on Android 2.2 aka Froyo. This is probably the biggest disappointment with the handset. The device is loaded with LGs Optimus UI 2.0 UI, which does enhance the overall functionality. The UI allows you to create sections so you can categorize your apps. We used J Disk Benchmark to test SD card performance, and recorded read and write speeds of 3.68 MB/s and 3.23 MB/s respectively. It might not seem like a lot, but its certainly fast enough not to be a bottleneck for apps running off your SD card. In the Linpack CPU test, the Optimus Black scored a total of 16.18 MFLOPS. These scores arent anywhere close to some of the other dual-core processor phones. Then again, the Optimus Black isnt priced in the same league. We loved the audio output. Music playback is crisp at higher frequencies and theres a resounding bass line that keeps it all in balance. The EQ presets are helpful, with the added boost of Dolby Surround. It can easily playback 720p video les coded in DivX or XviD formats.
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 19,990
www.lg.com
Dimensions (WxHxD): 122 x 64 x 9.2 mm; Weight: 109 g; OS: Android v2.2 Froyo; Processor: 1 GHz Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX530 GPU; Memory: 512 MB RAM, 2 GB internal; Display: 4-inch TFT, 480 x 800; Camera: 5 MP; Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN b/g/n, Bluetooth, micro USB; Battery: 1500 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE
VERDICT
EMAIL
LG Electronics 0120-2560900 [email protected]
THE SUB-RS 20,000 SMARTPHONE TO BEAT.
RATINGS
09/2011
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PHONE
LAVA M30
VERDICT: A good phone for audio and video playback. FOR: Great surround sound speaker quality, sturdy build. AGAINST: Supports only up to 8 GB of external memory.
he M30 is a music phone packed with some handy features targeted at the college-going youth.
3.5mm universal audio adapter that lets you use two sets of headphones with the phone. The 2.0 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom can capture crisp and bright photos although it lacks a ash for low light shots. There is no built-in memory to store photos, music or videos, but the phone comes with a 2 GB memory card, with support for up to 8 GB. On the connectivity front, the M30 has a mini USB port and is Bluetooth-enabled for le transfers. The USB port can also be used to connect the phone to your PC and use it as a webcam or modem. The phone is lacking when it comes to Internet connectivity, however, offering only GPRS and no support for EDGE or 3G. - Kushal Mamoowala
The dual-SIM candy bar phone has an excellent build quality, with a sturdy plastic and aluminium body and a stylish nish. Up front, it features a 2.2-inch (240 x 320 pixels) QVGA IPS screen. It also packs an onboard Yamaha audio system with SRS surround sound, which makes it a great phone for listening to music and watching videos on-the-go. The phone supports a variety of media le formats such as MP4, 3GP, AVI and RMVB for video and MP3, MIDI, AMR, WAV and AAC for audio. Other features of the M30 include a 2.0 megapixel camera, radio, scheduled SMS options, and a
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 4,499
www.lavamobiles.com
Dimensions (WxHxD): 45 x 13 x 180 mm; Weight: 116 g; Display: 2.2 in QVGA IPS screen; Camera: 2 megapixels; Storage: Micro SD up to 8 GB; Connectivity: Bluetooth, mini USB, GPRS; Functions: FM Radio, MP3 player, video playback, scheduled SMS
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Lava International 0120-4637333 [email protected]
RATINGS
PHONE
MAXX MX401
VERDICT: Great sound suppression and audio quality. FOR: Loud and clear audio, crisp display, noise suppression. AGAINST: Average ergonomics, slightly sluggish UI.
T
SPECIFICATIONS
he MX401 hails from from Maxxs Khamoshhh range, which feature noise cancellation for
great with loud and clear audio quality. Videos are very clear but the playback frames a bit, making the movie watching experience a bit irritating. The camera too was sluggish as the photos get clicked a second or two after the click. The video recording too wasnt impressive. On the other hand, voice call tests were very impressive; calls were very clear, loud and the noise cancellation actually worked. A direct hot key is available to cancel or adjust the noise suppression between 70% and 100% during a call. If you want a budget dual-SIM mobile phone with basic media playback and social networking features, this phone is a great deal. - Francis Dsa
superior sound quality during voice calls. The phone features a 2.4-inch screen (240x320 pixels), and a 2 megapixel camera. It also features social networking applications for Facebook and Twitter. The build quality of the phone is pretty good, but the ergonomics of the keypad are disappointing as keying in regular numbers and SMS gets sluggish due to the limited spacing between the keys even though they are large enough. The display is pretty crisp and clean and the UI is very easy to navigate, though with a bit of a lag. Playback of music is
Rs 2,650
www.maxxmobile.in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 53 x 118 x 15 mm; Weight: 104 g; Display: 2.4 in TFT, 240 x 320 pixels; Network: Dual band, dual SIM GSM; Camera: 2 megapixels; Talk time: 5 hrs; Standby time: 450 hrs; Battery: Li-ion 1500 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
MAXX Mobile Communications Ltd 022-33662222 [email protected]
RATINGS
BUILD QUALITY FEATURES PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
09/2011
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SMARTPHONE
SAMSUNG GT-B7510 GALAXY PRO

VERDICT: A great budget smartphone let down by poor battery life. FOR: Comfortable, smooth UI, great media features, good camera AGAINST: Poor battery life.
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 13,520
www.samsung.com
he Galaxy Pro has a 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen and a comfortable and well spaced out
well balanced and theres quite a bit of bass thrown in. FM radio also performed well, and the device can easily play H264 MPEG4, 3GP and WMV videos. The Galaxy Pro offers many connectivity options, from 3G to Wi-Fi with hot-spot creation, plus EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0. The 3 megapixel AF camera can capture pretty decent images, and features smile detection, panorama, geo-tagging, etc. The 1350mAh battery was the biggest let down, requiring a daily charge. At Rs 8,500, this wouldve been the perfect budget smartphone, if only it had a better battery. - Shayne Rana
full QWERTY keypad. To keep it small, a navigation pad has been omitted. Running Android 2.2 on an 800MHz processor, the phone manages to perform well without much lag while multi-tasking. The touch interface is responsive, so getting around is a breeze. Whats disappointing is that the Galaxy Pro lacks an indicator to let you know when theres a message or missed call. Multi-touch functionality is also missing. The music player features 5.1 surround sound and a few EQ presets. The highs and mid range frequencies are
Dimensions (WxHxD): 108.6 x 66.7 x 10.7 mm; Weight: 103 g; OS: Android v2.2 Froyo; Processor: 800 MHz; Memory: 512 MB internal; Display: 2.8-inch TFT, 320 x 240; Camera: 3.15 MP; Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN b/g/n, Bluetooth, micro USB; Battery: 1350 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Samsung India Electronics 0124-4881234 [email protected]
RATINGS
WI-FI ROUTER
LINKSYS E4200
VERDICT: The ideal choice for building a wireless home network where high speed is essential. FOR: Dual band, UPnP server, good build, physical power switch. AGAINST: No wall mounting, no stand.
he Linksys E4200 is a classy looking wireless router that promises to offer ultra-fast data
lack of a stand also makes it occupy a substantial amount of desk space. A single USB port provided here allows the router to be used as a NAS, FTP server and/or a UPnP server for media streaming. All one has to do is connect an external storage and manage the shares from the rmware. The router operates on a simultaneous dual-band N (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) along with 3x3 MIMO antennae for superior and reliable network coverage of up to 450 Mbps with compatible devices. One can also create a separate passwordprotected network for guests. Parental controls can also be implemented to specic computers on the network. - Francis Dsa
throughput to connect to your computer, Internet-ready TVs, gaming consoles and other wireless-enabled devices around your home or office. The router has a superior build quality with a rugged dual-tone shell that has a rubberized coating. It has just one indicator on the front in the form of a backlit logo of Cisco, which helps determine the status of the router. The rear panel features four gigabit Ethernet ports for high-speed data transfers with wired peripherals. The E4200 does not feature any external antennae or wall-mounting facilities. A
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 9,000
www.linksysbycisco.com
Dimensions (WxHxD): 225 x 25 x 160 mm; Weight: 355 g; Standards: 802.11 a/b/g/n; Operating bands: 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz; Security: WEP, WPA/PSK2, SPI firewall.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Cisco Consumer Products 1800-419-5797 [email protected]
RATINGS
44
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TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYER
COWON C2
VERDICT: A fantastic audio player if you can get past the dodgy design and UI. FOR: Excellent audio quality, great battery life, easy navigation. AGAINST: Not very compact, resistive touchscreen, small UI icons, average video playback
T
SPECIFICATIONS
he C2 isnt exactly a slim PMP, but while the design isnt extraordinary, the build quality is top-notch. The
isnt as great. The JetEffect 3.0 settings come with 35 presets and 4 user presets, but even without them, audio quality is brilliant. The highs aare a bit faint, but the mids and lows are great. The bass feels awesome with just the right level of boom. Features like bookmarks, favorites, and A-B Loop enhance the experience. The video quality doesnt quite match up, but it does play AVI and WMV les satisfactorily, as long as theyre short clips. FM plays quite clearly too. With audio playback, the battery lasted about 35 hours, which is not bad at all. Priced at Rs 6,725 for the 4 GB version, the C2 offers sublime audio performance that outweighs its minor quirks. - Ashish Koshy
bundled earphones arent in-ear, but are capable of dishing out clear sound. The interface operates smoothly, but the 2.6-inch, 320 x 240 pixel screen isnt too impressive. Navigation between menus is uid and despite being a resistive touchscreen, it works well. However, the navigation buttons are really tiny and not very responsive. Also, once you dump some more media onto the player, it takes a too long to update the database. The C2 supports a wide range of formats, including MP3, WMA, OGG, APE and FLAC. Since this is primarily an audio player, video support (AVI, ASF, WMV)
Rs 7,000
www.cowonindia.in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 78.7 x 53 x 12.8 mm; Weight: 84 g; Capacity: 4/8/16 GB; Display: 2.6 in, 320x240 pixels; Memory expansion: microSD; Audio codec: MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, APE, WAV; Video codec: MPEG layer 1/2/3 and WMV; Other functions: Photo viewer, FM radio and text viewer
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Cowon (Lipap Systems Pvt Ltd) 9819917440 [email protected]
RATINGS
MP3 PLAYER
CREATIVE ZEN STYLE M300

VERDICT: A good music player as an alternative to the iPod Nano. FOR: Expandable memory, Bluetooth. AGAINST: Poor quality display and touch sensitive buttons.
reatives Zen Style M300 is a compact and easy to use music player, with a display that is
memory of 4 GB, 8 GB or 16 GB, which is further expandable via microSD card, and individual touch-sensitive buttons. While the individual touch buttons make it easier to use than the Nano, they are not very sensitive and using them takes a little getting used to. It also packs in FM radio and a built-in microphone for voice recording. Creative claims that the M300 can provide 20 hours of battery life. Also, they make navigating through folders a little harder than on the Nano. The player comes in four different colors and there is also a slightly cheaper variant called the M100 for those that do not want Bluetooth. - Kushal Mamoowala
slightly larger than that of the iPod Nano. It is a great little player, and serves as a cheaper alternative to the Nano. The M300 is technically a portable media player, with its 1.45-inch TFT display and support for transcoded SMV video, but the tiny screen is not of the greatest quality, so it isnt ideal for video playback. As an audio player, the M300 supports MP3, WMA, WAV and AAX le formats and also works with Audible audio books. Where the M300 has an edge over the Nano is that it comes with Bluetooth support for wireless headphones, built-in
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 3,499
in.creative.com
Dimensions (WxHxD): 55.2 x 44.2 x 12.6 mm; Weight: 33 g; Capacity: 4 GB, expandable up to 32GB; Display: 1.45 in TFT; Connectivity: USB 2.0, Bluetooth; Other functions: FM Radio, voice recorder.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Creative Technology 9223101322 [email protected]
RATINGS
46
09/2011
TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
PHOTO PRINTER
CANON SELPHY CP800

FOR: Very convenient, excellent print quality, prints from memory cards and USB ash drives. AGAINST: At least a starter kit should have been bundled.
Stick and Compact Flash memory cards and a PictBridge-compliant USB port that can also read photos from USB ash drives. The CP800 feels sturdy and comes clad in an all-black shell. The control panel and a 2.5-inch ip-up LCD are placed at the top. Theres a Menu button, 5-way d-pad, back button and print button. The settings related to the printer and photo quality are minimal, and thanks to the intuitive user interface, youll get familiar with using the printer without referring to the user manual. As soon as you plonk in a USB ash drive or a memory card, the thumbnails of pictures on the storage device appear on the LCD screen. You can browse the photos by using the left and right buttons, which can be very painful if you have hundreds of photos. Under print settings, you can choose to enable or disable date imprint, image optimization, red eye correction, page border and skin
The cassette and photo paper have to be purchased separately.
he Canon Selphy CP800 is a lunchbox-sized 4x6 photo printer with slots for SD/MMC, Memory
number of copies you wish to print. The only drawback with the printer was the poor quality of the LCD display. Images appear unclear due to the low resolution and even the colors arent accurate. The CP800 uses 4-pass dyesublimation printing technique and you have to buy kits containing photo paper and ink cartridges separately. The 36-photo kit costs Rs 500 and the 108 photo kit costs Rs 1,250. So the cost per print comes to Rs 14 and Rs 11.6 respectively. The ink cassette goes into the printer from the side and you have to load the photo papers into the supplied tray at the front of the printer. When you hit Print, the printer pulls in a 4x6 paper and prints cyan, magenta, yellow and overcoating using one pass for each color. It takes around 54 seconds to print a color or black and white photo. The quality of the prints is excellent and comparable to what photo studios deliver. We couldnt nd any fault with the reproduction of colors or details, but for good results, your photos should be well exposed. The Selphy CP800 comes with just a driver disk and printing suite. It would have been nice if Canon had included a starter kit as well. This printer can also use a battery pack for portability, but thats an optional accessory, which costs Rs 4,000. For the convenience it offers and the superior print quality, we give it a thumbs-up. -Anand Tuliani
smoothening. Under My Colors, the color tone can be set to Vivid, Neutral, Positive Film, Sepia or Black and White. If you wish to print multiple images on a single 4x6 sheet, you can change the layout to 2-up, 4-up, 8-up, Index, ID photo or Shuffle. Depending on what you enable, the icons appear active to the right of the thumbnail preview. The up and down buttons on the d-pad are for setting the
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 5,295
www.canon.co.in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 177 x 68.8 x 134.6 mm; Weight: 940 g; Resolution: 300 dpi; Print technology: Dye sublimation.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Canon India 0124-4160000 [email protected]
VERDICT
RATINGS
BUILD QUALITY EASE OF USE FEATURES PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
GET INSTANT STUDIO QUALITY 4X6 PHOTOS ANYWHERE.

48
09/2011
TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
INKJET PRINTER
EPSON L100
VERDICT: An economical and eco-friendly printer for small and medium sized businesses. FOR: Huge rellable ink tanks, cheap ink rells, cheap printing costs. AGAINST: Average build, ink tanks are not detachable.
O
SPECIFICATIONS
ne of the worlds rst printers with a massive rellable ink tank system, Epson claims that
print at resolutions of 5760 x 1440 dpi and can attain print speeds up to a maximum of 17 pages (draft) per minute. The print quality is good, but we were quite disappointed with photo printing speeds and quality. A single 4 x 6-inch borderless print in best mode took us a whopping 5 minutes 20 seconds. The print quality was pretty grainy, had a peculiar pinkish tinge and a lack of good contrast, but you could look past these issues. This printer is greatly benecial and economical for businesses that print large volumes all month. At an asking price of Rs 8,999, the Epson E100 might seem pricey, but in the long run, the savings are much higher. - Francis Dsa
the L100 inkjet printer can yield up to 10,500 pages (4,000 black and 6,500 color) with a full tank. The tanks consist of four colors (CMYK) and each ink tank rell costs merely Rs 374, which brings an astonishing print economy of 10 paise and 20 paise per black and color print respectively. Over a month, that amounts to huge savings. The printers build is average and has a matte-nished exterior. This is a usual inkjet printer with an unusual side-carriage, which houses the four ink tanks, and each tank is linked to the print head via pipes. The L100 can
Rs 8,999
www.epson.co.in
Dimensions (WxHxD): 48.7 x 13.5 x 22.6 cm; Weight: 2.8 kg; Print resolution: 5760 x 1440 dpi; Interface: USB 2.0; Ink tanks: CMYK; Sheet tray: input100 sheets, output-50 sheets.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Epson India 080-30515000 [email protected]
RATINGS
HDD MEDIA PLAYER
IOMEGA SCREENPLAY DX
VERDICT: Iomegas offering seems like it was designed with some neat ideas in mind, but the nal device doesnt live up to its promise. FOR: Good support for le formats AGAINST: Clunky remote and interface, software needs major work.
he Screenplay DX has a few rough edges, but has a lot going for it too. The unit itself is quite bulky, but is
for instance, instead of requiring the user to press [Shift] before every button press. The software also falls short because of the extremely clunky browser and YouTube apps that require you to move a mouse cursor around on screen with the remote, in addition to poor sorting and le management options throughout. We hope these are addressed in future software updates. On the bright side, the Screenplay DX handled audio and video les superbly, even at HD resolutions. It found and played media from network shares and DLNA servers without any problems. - Jamshed Avari
easy to set up. Iomega includes a Wi-Fi adapter, which none of its competitors do, although its a mystery why Wi-Fi couldnt have just been built in. Upon rst use, youre guided through a wizard that takes care of network conguration and basic preferences. The QWERTY remote should have made typing and navigation easy, but the buttons are too stiff and you have to point it at the receiver carefully or key presses dont register. The software could have made things easier by defaulting to number input while entering IP addresses,
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 10,700
www.iomega.com
Dimensions (WxDxH): 200 x 156 x 44 mm; Weight: 1.197 kg; Connectivity: HDMI, Composite, Component, S/PDIF, 3x USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi (included); Capacity: 1 TB
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Iomega 022-40859600 [email protected]
RATINGS
ERGONOMICS FEATURES PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
50
09/2011
TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
GRAPHICS CARD
XFX RADEON HD 6670

VERDICT: Well-suited for home theater PCs and casual gaming. FOR: Low power consumption, uses a single PCIE slot, silent. AGAINST: None.
MD recently launched three entrylevel graphic cards Radeon HD 6450, 6570 and 6670. All of these
design. The rear panel sports D-sub, HDMI and DVI outputs and the maximum resolution supported by the card is 2560 x 1600 on a single monitor. We plugged this card into our test rig powered by the Intel Core i7-2600K CPU, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, Intel DZ68DB motherboard and Plextor PX-256M2S SSD. It logged 1464 points in 3DMark 11. It is just about able to run games at 1920x1080 with minimal settings. Just Cause 2 and Maa II ran at 28 fps and Crysis Warhead ran at 59 fps in Performance mode. Go for this card only if you need decent gaming in addition to hardware acceleration for media processing. If youre not looking at gaming, the 6570 would be a good option. - Anand Tuliani
are tiny, extremely silent and all they need is power from the PCIE x16 slot. The HD 6450 and 6570 are ideal for home theater applications, but the HD 6670 has the muscle to run games at full HD resolution, albeit with visual effects at a minimum. The HD 6670 has 480 stream processors and the reference core and memory speed is 800 MHz. This card runs at stock speed and has 1 GB of GDDR3 memory that is tied to the GPU with a 128-bit bus. The GPU doesnt demand powerful cooling because it consumes a miniscule amount of power. So the heat sink tted is pretty small, which lends the card a single-slot
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 5,775
www.xfxforce.com
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6670; Memory: 1024 MB GDDR3; Memory bus width: 128-bit; Speed: (Core | Memory): 800 MHz | 800 MHz; Stream processors: 480; Video outputs: Dual-link DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Rashi Peripherals 022-40470828 [email protected]
RATINGS
GRAPHICS CARD
HIS RADEON HD 6870 IceQX

VERDICT: A negligibly overclocked HD 6870 with a good cooler. FOR: Good cooler, silent, good performance. AGAINST: Performance similar to a stock HD 6870.
T
SPECIFICATIONS
he HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQX is a factory-overclocked graphics card with a custom cooler with
5 MHz and 70 MHz respectively. So before putting it to the test, we guessed this card would perform more or less like a stock HD 6870. The card scored 4343 points in 3DMark 11. At 1920x1080 (Enthusiast mode) it reported 37 fps in Crysis Warhead (2.5 fps higher than stock). At the same resolution and with effects set to very high, Maa II ran at 53 fps; similar to stock performance. It would have been nice if HIS had pushed the core and memory clocks higher to raise the performance bar, but nevertheless, this card is still good value for money because it bundles a download coupon for Dirt 3. - Anand Tuliani
which the card runs 15 degrees C cooler and 15 dB more silent than the reference design. The shell is translucent icy blue in color. The cooler utilizes a quad heat pipe design for effective dissipation of heat from the GPU to the heat sink. A 92 mm fan that sits at the center cools the heatsink and the hot air is channelled to the rear of the card. The rear panel sports pairs of DVI and Mini DP ports and an HDMI port. Factory-overclocked sounds intriguing, but we werent too excited when we learnt that the GPU and memory are overclocked by a measly
Rs 16,000
www.hisdigital.com
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6870; Memory: 1024 MB GDDR5; Memory bus width: 256-bit; Speed: (Core | Memory): 920 MHz | 1120 MHz; Stream processors: 1120; Video outputs: Dual-link DVI, HDMI and Mini DP.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Tirupati Enterprises 9339207519 [email protected]
RATINGS
09/2011
51
TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
MOTHERBOARD
INTEL DESKTOP BOARD DZ68DB

VERDICT: Latest chipset with a minimal feature set. FOR: Good performance, video outputs, Virtu support. AGAINST: No all-solid capacitors, no multi-GPU support.
T
SPECIFICATIONS
he DZ68DB is an entry level motherboard based on the Intel Z68 chipset. Although the chipset
with the video outputs, youll nd six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire port, an eSATA port and 8-channel audio jacks. Four on-board USB 2.0 headers can be used to add ports to case bezel. Due to the minimal features, the components used in construction are few and hence well-spread out. Performance is at par with mainstream boards, but dont expect fancy features such as provision for extreme overclocking. If youre willing to stretch your budget, go for the Asus P8Z68-V or the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P. If youre on a tight budget, the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 is a better deal. - Anand Tuliani
is powerful, the board has only a handful of features. While most other brands offer all-solid capacitors and multi-GPU support, the DZ68DB only has a single PCIE x16 slot for a discrete graphics card, two PCIE x1 slots, and three PCI slots. The on-die GPU of the processor can be utilized thanks to the provision of video outputs (DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI). The board supports Virtu, which allows you to harness the power of the integrated graphics for media processing despite a discrete graphics card installed. Along
Rs 9,000
www.intel.com
Chipset: Intel Z68 Express; CPU socket: LGA 1155; RAM: DDR3-1333 (32 GB max); Video outputs: DVI, DP and HDMI; Expansion slots: 1x PCIE x16, 2x PCIE x1 and 3x PCI; SATA 3 Gb/s | 6 Gb/s: 3 | 2; USB 2.0 | 3.0: 14 (eight via headers) | 2; Other features: Gigabit Ethernet, 8-ch audio and eSATA.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Ingram Micro India 022-39894645 [email protected]
RATINGS
CPU COOLER
CORSAIR HYDRO H80

VERDICT: Great for overclocking and high-end gaming PCs. FOR: Easy installation, silent, supports Intel and AMD platforms. AGAINST: None.
he extra cooling that liquid cooling delivers over air cooling is conducive to overclocking, cuts
in the unit that sits on top of the CPU. All you have to do is t the pump, which has a copper base, onto the CPU, and mount the cooler onto the rear or top grill of your PC case. Before mounting the radiator, you have to fasten the bundled 120 mm fans to either side in a pushpull manner. The fans connect to the terminals on the pump and their speed can be controlled using the big button at the center. The cooler draws power from a 4-pin Molex connector. Theres also a connector for using the Corsair Link, which is sold separately. It allows monitoring temperatures, setting user proles, and controlling case lighting. - Anand Tuliani
down the whirring of the CPU fan and lowers temperatures in high-end PCs. The Corsair Hydro H80 is a liquid cooler that supports a variety of Intel and AMD CPU sockets. The mounting hardware includes a bracket each for both the platforms and screws to fasten the cooler onto the CPU. The H80 isnt a modular liquid cooling kit wherein you have to cut the pipes to the desired length, interconnect the radiator and the pump and then pour the liquid into the radiator. This ones a ready unit with coolant already present in a closed circuit loop. The pump is housed
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 5,999
www.corsair.com
Radiator dimensions (WxHxD): 120 x 150 x 38 mm; CPU socket support: Intel LGA 775, 1155, 1156, 1366 and AMD socket AM2 and AM3; Fan size: 120 mm; Fan speed: 1300 to 2500 rpm; Fan airflow: 46 to 92 CFM.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Corsair 1800-425-5464 [email protected]
RATINGS
52
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TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
SPEAKER
BLUETOOTH HEADSET
3G ROUTER
X-MINI WAVE
VERDICT: A highly portable, batterypowered speaker with wesome audio performance. FOR: Small form factor, excellent audio quality, good battery life. AGAINST: A tad expensive.
PLANTRONICS VOYAGER PRO UC

VERDICT: A professional multi-point Bluetooth headset for simultaneous PC and mobile use. FOR: Built-in sensor for wearing states, dual-mic for noise cancellation. AGAINST: In-ear rubber buds not provided. SPECIFICATIONS
D-LINK LE PETIT ROUTER

VERDICT: A smart router-modem combo the size of a standard pen drive. FOR: Small size, can be powered by a USB adapter. AGAINST: Very expensive.
SPECIFICATIONS
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 3,090
www.accessinfoworld.com
Rs 8,000
www.plantronics.com
Rs 7,299
www.dlink.co.in
Dimensions (WxH): 49.2 x 62.3 mm; Weight: 98.6 g; Power output: 2.5 Watt; Freq response: 110Hz 18 KHz; Playback time: up to 8 hrs; Battery: 400 mAh.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Weight: 17.5 g; Audio: Dual mic with noise cancellation; Connection: Multi-point Bluetooth, up to 30 feet; Battery: 5 days standby, 6 hrs talk time.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Dimensions (WxHxD): 90 x 11 x 28 mm; Weight: g; Modes: Modem, router; Wireless standards: 802.11 b/g/n-150; Interface: USB 2.0.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
ACCESS 022-23840789 [email protected]
Plantronics 0124-4105192 [email protected]
D-Link 022-29215700 [email protected]
RATINGS
RATINGS
RATINGS
his mono capsule speaker has a built-in 400 mAh battery that can
he Voyager Pro UC is a multipoint A2DP Bluetooth headset
he Le Petit router is the size of a conventional USB ash drive and
be fully charged in just 2.5 hours and can entertain you for almost eight hours. It features a built-in digital FM tuner with a miniature LCD screen for channel details. The Wave features BXS (Bass Xpansion System) for additional bass output. The Buddy Jack audio out can be daisy-chained to other X-Mini speakers for simultaneous audio output. The audio test was a fantastic experience and along with its portability, it is denitely worth a buy. We did nd a glitch though; when switched to radio mode, the audio input from the jack did not cut off. Bundled along is a carry case and USB cable with an audio in-line jack, which helps charge/power the device. - Francis Dsa
that can be simultaneously used with the PC and your mobile phone. The pre-paired micro USB dongle can be connected to a USB 2.0 port of any PC. It enables you to automatically switch between your PC audio and mobile phone voice call. A built-in sensor automatically enables the Bluetooth link when it detects that it has been worn. It has a dual-mic for active noise cancellation and talk time of almost six hours. The audio quality is great and it ts snugly on either ear. A software download from the manufacturers site helps update proles with settings such as sensor or wearing states, PC and mobile ringtones, and also updates on battery status. - Francis Dsa
underneath the hood lays a 3G modem and Wireless N-150 router. It has a USB interface and can be used as a 3G modem. One ick of the switch on the side changes the devices functionality from a modem into a wireless N-150 router. You can also power it via a standard USB adapter as the power requirement is just 5 Volts. The device is compatible with 3.75 G HSUPA networks and is backward compatible with HSDPA, UTMS, EDGE and GPRS. All you need is a standard 3G SIM card a one-time router conguration. It has a built-in ROM, which has the required drivers and software. It is an excellent device if you need an Internet access point when on the move. - Francis Dsa
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TEST CENTER
HARDWARE
SD CARD
USB FLASH DRIVE
EXTERNAL STORAGE
SANDISK 32GB SDHC UHS-I

VERDICT: An expensive, highperformance card ideal for professional photographers. FOR: Great read and write speeds, built to last. AGAINST: Expesive. SPECIFICATIONS
OM NANOTECH ZIPMEM ZU10M13

VERDICT: A good choice for transferring large les like hi-res Blu-ray movie rips. FOR: Free password protection software. AGAINST: Bulky build.
WD MY BOOK ESSENTIAL 3 TB
VERDICT: Great for backing up large amounts of data at zippy transfer speeds. FOR: High speed data transfer, large storage capacity. AGAINST: Glossy exterior. SPECIFICATIONS
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 12,499
www.sandisk.com
Rs 600
www.om-nanotech.com
Rs 10,999
www.wdc.com
Capacity: 32 GB; Class: 1; Durability: Shock proof, water proof, temperature proof, X-ray proof.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Dimensions (WxHxD): 55 x 18 x 9 mm; Weight: 14.5 g; Capacity: 10 GB; Interface: USB 2.0.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Dimensions (WxHxD): 48 x 165 x 135 mm; Weight: 1.18 kg; Capacity: 3 TB; Interface: USB 3.0, USB 2.0.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
SanDisk 022-67090886 [email protected]
Om Nanotech 0120-2460008 [email protected]
Western Digital 9880293193 [email protected]
RATINGS
RATINGS
RATINGS
anDisk claims that the Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I is shockproof,
ipMem range of pen drives features odd capacities of 6 GB and 10 GB.
he My Book Essential 3 TB is a splendid option for those looking
waterproof and X-ray proof, and that it can achieve 45 MB/s transfer rates with UHS-I-enabled cameras. The UHS Speed Class 1 video class lets it record 1080p videos and 3D content. While using it with the Canon EOS 600D, we noticed that continuous shooting was possible for well over 20 pictures. This shows high write speeds during photography. Average read speeds of 26.78 MB/s were recorded, and the random access time was 1.8 ms, which is very good. The single le copy recorded at 14.25 MB/s, while the multiple les copied at 12.06 MB/s. The transfer rates from the card to the HDD were a lot quicker - 26.25 MB/s for the single le, and 23.95 MB/s for multiple les. - Aaron Almeida
The 10 GB pen drive shows a capacity of 10.55 GB, which is strangely larger than the stated size. Most standard pen drives have capacities in the power of 2, but the manufacturer argues that the non-standard size is an advantage as they can store 4.4 GB and 8 GB hi-res movie rips from DVDs or Blu-ray discs that their 4 GB and 8 GB counterparts cannot. The drive showed a competitive read speed of 17.4 MB/s and a write speed of 8.1 MB/s when writing a single 1 GB le. The pen drive also supports partitioning with up to 4 partitions one read-only partition, two read/write partitions, and one hidden partition, all of which you can secure with the free password protection software from the manufacturers website. - Kushal Mamoowala
for immense storage space for backups. The drive offers a speedy data transfer rate using the USB 3.0 interface. It boasts superior build quality, but the high-gloss exterior can be ruined by ngerprints and scratches. The drive performs pretty well thanks to its USB 3.0 interface. We recorded read and write speeds of 124 MB/s and 75 MB/s respectively when tested using a single 4 GB le. Transferring assorted les amounting to 4 GB showed read and write speeds of 95 MB/s and 55 MB/s respectively. The maximum average read and write speeds using the USB 2.0 interface were around 19 MB/s and 24 MB/s respectively. Bundled along is WD SmartWare, which is a fully automated backup utility. - Francis Dsa
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LAPTOP COMPARISON
TEST CENTER
LEAN &
Dont underestimate the capabilities of these ultra-slim machines. Some are more powerful than your desktop PC. Would you want one as your travel companion?
BY ANAND TULIANI AND FRANCIS D'SA APPLE MACBOOK PRO WEIGHT: 1.36 KG TOSHIBA PORTEGE R700 WEIGHT: 1.46 KG SONY VAIO SA26GG WEIGHT: 1.61 KG LENOVO THINKPAD X1 WEIGHT: 1.75 KG ASUS U36S WEIGHT: 1.90 KG
ACER TIMELINE 5830TG WEIGHT: 2.49 KG
TOTAL WEIGHT: 10.57 KGS
58
09/2011
Joshua Navalkar
SMS us!
Story code: TPS to 51818
LAPTOP COMPARISON
TEST CENTER
MEAN
L
eaner manufacturing processes and new microarchitecture bring new features and improved performance the performance of high-end laptops in unbelievably slim shells. These laptops cater to those who need tremendous performance and good battery life while on the move. The incredible designs that some models sported dazzled us. The Sony Vaio SA26GG, the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 and the Apple Macbook Pro were showstoppers. The Vaio SA26GG weighs a little more than 1.5 kg, but it can easily outperform an average desktop PC with its superior feature set. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 wont go kaput if you accidentally spill any liquid over its keyboard. It features a spill-proof design that drains out liquid from the vents at the bottom. Last but not the least, who wouldnt want to own a Macbook Pro? It exudes class in its very design, and doesnt compromise on any aspect its powerful, extremely comfortable to use and looks gorgeous. In this roundup of slim laptops, we tested seven models by the top brands, each featuring a different design and catering to a different audience. Depending on your needs and budget, opt for the one that suits you best. But before you delve into our exhaustive table to base your decision, heres a synopsis of how we tested each model. to the table. In the case of laptops, it translates to better battery life and leaner designs. The latest generation Sandy Bridge and ultra-low voltage (ULV) processors require less cooling, due to which they can be incorporated into ultra-compact notebooks. And what you get is a mighty road warrior that wont succumb to demanding applications. Manufacturers have various approaches to formulating ultracompact notebooks. The most cost effective models feature 12.1 or 13.3-inch displays and are based on the Intel Atom or the AMD Brazos platform. These are essentially netbooks with larger displays. Moving up the performance ladder, next come models based on ULV processors. These laptops are a lot more powerful than netbooks, but slightly weaker than most entry-level laptops powered by Intel Pentium P6200. ULV processors are clocked at lower speeds and compromise on performance to offer marathon battery life while not being too underpowered. The most powerful of the lot are models based on Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. They pack
TEST PROCESS
The evaluation of the laptops in this roundup consisted of ve sections Features, Build quality, Ergonomics, Performance and Warranty. In Features, we noted important characteristics such as the hardware conguration - processor, chipset, graphics, memory, storage, and display. We then noted other features, like as I/O ports such as USB, eSATA and Firewire, video interfaces, pointing devices, webcam specs, networking interfaces, optical drives, operating system, etc. The weight of each laptop was also an important factor. The Build Quality section is vital as it determines the durability of the laptop. Parameters include the quality of the chassis, screen frame, hinges, keyboard, buttons and switches. We also looked for scratch-resistant exteriors, use of metal, and the battery retention mechanism. Lastly, scores were given to the aesthetics of each laptop. Ergonomics is critical when using a laptop. This section analyzes essential elements such as the keyboards keys and layout, the pointing device and its buttons, status indicators, hotkeys, etc. For Performance, we ran exhaustive synthetic and real-world tests on each laptop. The synthetic tests helped analyze the core components, such as the processor, memory, storage and the GPU. For these tests, we used SiSoft Sandra 2011, PCMark Vantage, CineBench R11.5 and 7.zip. The realworld tests helped us quite accurately reect the actual performance of the laptop. These included le compression test using assorted les, video encoding of a 60-second MPEG clip, ray-tracing of an image, and le transfer speeds. Lastly, we analyzed the quality and output of the built-in speakers. We also ran a test to get an idea of the maximum battery life under minimum and maximum loads. The Warranty section evaluates the amount of support (in years) provided by the manufacturer of each laptop. The Best Value award was awarded to the laptop that offered a good balance of all these above
A switch for Stamina and Speed helps toggle between performance mode and battery saving.
Seen here are additional features such as multimedia hotkeys and a biometric scanner.
characteristics at an attractive price.
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LAPTOP COMPARISON
TEST CENTER
ACER TIMELINE 5830TG

VERDICT
EXCELLENTLY CRAFTED FOR PORTABILITY WITH THE COMFORT OF A DESKTOP PC.

SPECIFICATIONS
he Acer Timeline 5830TG took home the title of Best Value simply because it offers the
is not user-replaceable. On the ergonomic front, the Timeline does pretty well. The keyboard and numeric keypad along with large and highly tactile keys makes working on the laptop feel similar to working on a desktop PC. The USB ports, display interfaces, Ethernet port, optical drive and card reader are neatly placed around the shell and are easy to access. When tested for its performance, The Acer Timeline scored the third best in the category, defeated by the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 by a miniscule two points. The battery life is pretty decent, with 6.5 hours of regular usage and almost two hours on a full load. If you are on a low budget and looking for a decent ultraportable laptop that you would like to lug around, but also want the features and comfort of a desktop PC, then the Acer Timeline 5830TG would be an excellent option. But if you need a highly portable laptop with a sleek design and ferocious performance, the Sony VAIO SA26GG is a great laptop, but it will set you back a good Rs 1.3 lakh. FOR: Large keyboard, big display, good audio quality, decent performance, AGAINST: Bulky.
greatest blend of features at the lowest retail price. The laptop is built using an Intel Core i5-2410M processor with 3 MB L3 Cache clocked at 2.3 GHz (factory overclocked with Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz). It also features 3 GB of DDR3 RAM, 640 GB of storage space, and a discrete Nvidia GT 540M graphics processor with 1 GB of video RAM. A full-sized keyboard with a numeric pad along with a fairly large 15.6-inch display screen promises a comfortable working environment while on the move. Other features include three USB 2.0 ports on the right side and one USB 3.0 port and an HDMI port on the left side. A DVD writer completes the hardware requirements and Windows 7 Home Premium is pre-installed on the laptop as the operating system. The Timeline has great build quality and has durable and rm screen hinges, but the display doesn't fold out to a 180 degree angle. The keyboard has well-spaced tactile keys. The only two downsides are that though it is pretty slim, it still weighs 2.5 kg and the battery
Rs 42,229
Dimensions (WxHxD): 378 x 32 x 250 mm; Weight: 2.49 Kg; Processor: Intel Core i5-2410M; Memory: 3 GB DDR3; Storage: 640 GB; Graphics: Nvidia GT 540M; Display: 15.6-inch; Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Acer India 080-39408700 [email protected]
RATINGS
BUILD QUALITY FEATURES ERGONOMICS PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
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SONY VAIOVPC-SA26GG
ntel Core i7 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, four 64 GB SSDs in RAID and 1 GB dedicated graphics. It sounds like a
toggle backlight you have to use the Vaio Control Center app accessible via a hotkey. Similarly, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi can be toggled only via an app in the system tray. The trackpad and buttons are comfortably large, but the buttons need to be pressed slightly hard. The performance of this laptop is beyond excellent. With AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics, you can even play games at the native resolution with visual effects slightly lowered. Theres a switch above the keyboard for switching between the on-die Intel HD graphics and discrete graphics. On a full charge, the laptop survived for 7 hours with light load (Web browsing and word processing) and slightly more than an hour under heavy load. If you dont have the budget to own this baby, you can look at the Vaio SB, which features similar design but a less powerful conguration (Core i3, 4 GB RAM, AMD HD 5470 graphics and 500 GB hard disk) and costs just Rs 47,990. FOR: Powerful conguration, optical drive, excellent design, high resolution display. AGAINST: Feels delicate.
VERDICT
conguration of a powerful desktop PC, but everything is squeezed into a slick ultra-portable form weighing only 1.6 kg. Many ultra-portable laptops exclude an optical drive due to the limitation of the form factor, but the Sony Vaio VPCSA26GG also manages to accommodate a DVD writer. With four high-speed SSDs striped together, the read and write speeds are blazingly fast. At over 500 MB/s, it took less than 10 seconds to read and write 4 GB of data. Applications launch almost instantly and Windows 7 boots up in less than 15 seconds. The 13.3-inch display is not the standard 1366x768 pixel panel. It sports a native resolution of 1440x900 pixels. While the images and text look crisp, users with farsightedness might nd reading ne text difficult unless the text size is
AN EXTREMELY POWERFUL LAPTOP FOR POWER USERS WHO ARE ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.
SPECIFICATIONS
Rs 1,29,900
Dimensions (WxHxD): 332 x 25 x 225 mm; Weight: 1.6 Kg; Processor: Intel Core i7-2620M; Memory: 8 GB DDR3; Storage: 256 GB SSD; Graphics: AMD HD 6630M; Display: 13.3-inch; Operating system: Windows 7 Pro.
CONTACT PHONE EMAIL
Sony India 1800-103-7799 [email protected]
changed in Windows Display Settings. The Vaio scores high on aesthetics, but at the same time, it feels quite delicate. The island-type keyboard is backlit and the keys are large, with good tactile feel. There is no hotkey or key combination to
RATINGS
BUILD QUALITY FEATURES ERGONOMICS PERFORMANCE OVERALL RATING VALUE FOR MONEY
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PERSONAL TAKE
SpecScan
NAME Contact Phone E-mail Price* OVERALL Features (30%) Build quality (10%) Ergonomics (15%) Performance (40%) Warranty & support (5%) Overall (out of 100) Value for money FEATURES Dimensions | Weight Processor Memory Storage Graphics Display Video outputs Mouse type | Webcam | Optical drive FireWire | eSATA USB 2.0 | USB 3.0 Ethernet | Wi-fi | Bluetooth Replaceable battery | Fingerprint sensor Operating system BUILD QUALITY Quality **: Chassis | Screen frame | Hinges Keyboard | Buttons and switches Battery retention mechanism ** | Scratch resistant body Use of metal in construction | Aesthetic appeal ** ERGONOMICS Keys **: Size | Spacing | Tactility Regular sized: Enter key | Shift key Numeric pad | LED status indicators Touchpad buttons **: Size | Tactility | Placement Dedicated switches: Wi-fi / BT | Volume control | Disable touchpad No of hotkeys | 180-degree screen foldout PERFORMANCE Synthetic tests: SiSoft Sandra 2011: CPU Multimedia | Mem bandwidth | HDTV transcode PCMark Vantage: Overall | Memory | Gaming | Productivity | HDD Cinebench R11.5 | 7.zip (32MB Dict) Real-world tests: File compression | Video Encoding | Ray tracing File transfer test (avg): Linear | Random Audio: Volume | Quality ** Battery life: Min load | Max load WARRANTY Warranty period
** Scores our of 5
ANAND TULIANI [email protected] I wouldnt want to blow all my money on a laptop, but spending a few thousand extra for portability is acceptable. My personal favorite in this roundup is the slim and svelte Asus U36s. Intel Core i3-2310M along with 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB hard drive should pack adequate power for my needs. The only drawback is the lack of an optical drive, plus at 1.9 kg, its a tad heavy, considering other models weigh less than 1.5 kg. If I had the money, I would settle for the Macbook Pro. Its built solidly, looks awesome and performs brilliantly. The Sony Vaio SA26GG tops the performance chart with its unbelievable feature set, but it feels very light and feeble. We handled it with extreme care, fearing something would go wrong with it. If youre an extremely careful user, who likes pampering delicate gadgets, go for it.
SONY VAIO SA26GG Sony India 1800-103-7799 [email protected] Rs. 129,900

85 78 78 93 33
0 50 100
LENOVO THINKPAD X1 Lenovo India 080-30533192 [email protected] Rs. 85,000

64 90 84 64 33
0 50 100
83.85 2 332 x 25 x 225 mm | 1.61 Kg Intel Core i7-2620M, 2.7 GHz, 4 MB Cache 8 GB DDR3 256 GB,SSD, NA AMD HD 6630M, 1 GB 13.3-inch, 1440x900, Matte finish D-sub + HDMI | 1.6 MP | | 2|1 Gigabit | | | Windows 7 Professional 4 | 3 | 2.5 5|5 5| |5 5 | 5 | 4.5 | | Wi-fi 3 | 2.5 | 4 || 2|
68.05 2.5 333 x 25 x 231 mm | 1.75 Kg Intel Core i5-2420M, 2.5 GHz, 3 MB Cache 4 GB DDR3 320 GB,HDD, 7200 RPM Intel HD 13.3-inch, 1366x768, Matte finish D-sub + miniDP + HDMI | 1.3 MP | | 1|1 Gigabit | | | Windows 7 Professional 5|5|5 5|5 5| |5 5|5|5 | | Bluetooth + Wi-fi 5|4|4 || 2|
FRANCIS D'SA [email protected] Opting for an ultra-portable laptop is certainly dicey, as everyone would like a laptop that is as slim and light as possible. But since the manufacturers find it very difficult to integrate all the features in the smallest space available, there are bound to be compromises. For example, a smaller form factor and smaller display sometimes comes at the cost of the optical drive, which is not cool. Also, there are often issues with the integrated (non userreplaceable) battery. Finally, the slick design makes these laptops expensive for the specs they pack in. The Sony Vaio SA26GG is definitely a laptop to drool over. It proved to be the best performer in the group (thanks to the SSD storage clubbed in RAID) and its almost the lightest too, but it is simply too expensive. If price is a concern, and you dont mind a 2.5 kg PC on your lap, the third best performer, the Acer Timeline 5830TG, should definitely be the first on your list.
111 Mpix/s | 17.7 GB/s | 538 KB/s 11723 | 5586 | 8355 | 13210 | 17336 3.12 Pts | 9168 MIPS 64 sec | 58 sec | 35.85 sec 806.8 MB/s | 502.5 MB/s 4|3 7 hrs 6 min | 1 hr 12 Min 1 year
104.32 Mpix/s | 9 GB/s | 480 KB/s 7411 | 4209 | 4126 | 6597 | 4246 2.87 Pts | 8334 MIPS 71 sec | 62 sec | 38.33 sec 81.32 MB/s | 47.45 MB/s 4|4 4 hrs 53 min | 47 min 1 year
* Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra.
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ACER TIMELINE 5830TG Acer India 080-39408700 [email protected] Rs. 42,229

69 84 79 62 33
0 50 100
TOSHIBA PORTEGE R700 Toshiba India 0124-4996600 [email protected] Rs. 75,485

73 78 76 47 100
0 50 100
APPLE MACBOOK PRO Apple India 080-25744646 [email protected] Rs. 84,900

61 100 61 59 33
0 50 100
ASUS U36S ASUS Technology 022-67668800 [email protected] Rs. 55,299

60 86 76 54 33
0 50 100
LENOVO IDEAPAD U260 Lenovo India 080-30533192 [email protected] Rs. 44,990

55 74 59 29 33
0 50 100
67.40 5 378 x 32 x 250 mm | 2.49 Kg Intel Core i5-2410M, 2.3 GHz, 3 MB Cache 3 GB DDR3 640 GB,HDD, 5400 RPM Nvidia GT 540M, 1 GB 15.6-inch, 1366x768, Glossy finish D-sub + HDMI | 1.3 MP | | 3|1 Gigabit | | | Windows 7 Home Premium 5 | 4 | 4.5 4.5 | 5 5| | 4.5 5|5|4 | | Wi-fi 5 | 5 | 3.5 || 1|
64.90 3 316 x 25.7 x 227 mm | 1.46 Kg Intel Core i5-460M, 2.53 GHz, 3 MB Cache 3 GB DDR3 500 GB,HDD, 5400 RPM Intel HD 13.3-inch, 1366x768, Glossy finish D-sub + HDMI | 1.3 MP | | 3|0 Gigabit | | | Windows 7 Professional 4.5 | 3.5 | 4 5|5 4| |4 4|5|4 | | BT + Wi-fi 5|4|4 || 2|
62.70 2.5 325 x 24.1 x 227 mm | 1.36 Kg Intel Core i7-2620M, 2.7 GHz, 4 MB Cache 4 GB DDR3 500 GB,HDD, 5400 RPM Intel HD 13.3-inch, 1366x768, Glossy finish Thunderbolt | 1.3 MP | | 2|0 Gigabit | | | Mac OS X Lion 5|5|5 5|5 5| |5 5|5|5 | | None 5|4|5 || 0|
61.25 3.5 330 x 28 x 240 mm | 1.9 Kg Intel Core i3-2310M, 2.1 GHz, 3 MB Cache 3 GB DDR3 500 GB,HDD, 5400 RPM Intel HD 13.3-inch, 1366x768, Glossy finish D-sub + HDMI | 0.6 MP | | 2|1 Gigabit | | | Windows 7 Professional 5 | 4.5 | 4.5 5|5 5| | 4.5 4.5 | 5 | 4.5 | | Wi-fi 5 | 4.5 | 4.5 || 1|
46.00 3.5 318 x 18 x 204.5 mm | 1.38 Kg Intel Core i3-U380, 1.33 GHz, 3 MB Cache 4 GB DDR3 320 GB,HDD, 5400 RPM Intel HD 12.5-inch, 1366x768, Matte finish D-sub + HDMI | 0.3 MP | | 2|0 Gigabit | | | Win 7 Home Premium 5|3|3 5|3 3| |4 2.5 | 2.5 | 4.5 | | Bluetooth + Wifi 3|3|3 || 0|
93.9 Mpix/s | 13.3 GB/s | 451 KB/s 6285 | 4003 | 4565 | 5109 | 3385 2.61 Pts | 7384 MIPS 78 sec | 76 sec | 42.77 sec 68.92 MB/s | 54.73 MB/s 4|5 6 hrs 21 min | 1 hr 47 min 1 year
58.18 Mpix/s | 8.15 GB/s | 377 KB/s 4525 | 3048 | 3272 | 5247 | 2631 1.85 Pts | 7281 MIPS 99 sec | 91 sec | 66.55 sec 64.84 MB/s | 32.62 MB/s 2.5 | 2 7 hrs 21 min | 1 hr 39 min 3 years
67 Mpix/s | 16.27 GB/s | 446 KB/s 6301 | 3441 | 4290 | 5320 | 2417 2.62 Pts | 7859 MIPS 78 sec | 70 sec | 43.4 sec 49.35 MB/s | 42.96 MB/s 4|4 4 hrs 15 min | 1 hr 36 min 1 year
52 Mpix/s | 13.7 GB/s | 356 KB/s 4517 | 2901 | 4217 | 3644 | 2340 2.05 Pts | 6059 MIPS 100 sec | 88 sec | 54.79 sec 66.12 MB/s | 44.58 MB/s 3.5 | 3.5 6 hrs 41 min | 4 hrs 58 min 1 year
26.4 Mpix/s | 4.62 GB/s | 199 KB/s 3586 | 2015 | 2193 | 3481 | 2438 1.12 Pts | 3738 MIPS 177 sec | 158 sec | 116.77 sec 64.42 MB/s | 40.72 MB/s 2.5 | 1.5 3 hrs 24 min | 1 hr 47 min 1 year
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PORTABLE SPEAKERS COmPARiSOn
TEST CENTER
PLAY IT LOUD
iPod docks are extremely popular, and different users look at different aspects when choosing one, from aesthetics to sound to features. Here, we've tested and compared the best docks in the market across all these important parameters.
By AnAnd TuliAni and FrAncis d'sA
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TEST CENTER
TEST PROCESS
In this roundup of iPod docks, we carried out tests across four sections - Features, Build quality, Performance and Warranty. Each speaker is different from the other, and these differences make up the Features section. We noted parameters such as dimensions, weight, number of speakers, iPod docking port, battery type, auxiliary inputs, and the IR remote control. Additional functions such as FM radio, alarm clock and wireless
communication (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) he Apple iPod is clearly the worlds most popular portable media player. Its dominance is in various shapes and sizes, distinctly designed to suit your living room, bedroom, or desktop. Most portable docks either have built-in battery packs or use regular replaceable ones. At times, its astonishing to see the quality and volume of sound that such small devices can dish out. Some are small enough to be placed by your bedside and can be controlled wirelessly while listening to your favorite melodies. Docks designed to deliver pristine sound are still too expensive. However, quite a few are now affordable enough, with the cheapest one costing less than Rs 3,000. These docks are easily identifiable by their fancy names, like the Harman Kardon Go+Play Micro. When it comes to design, choose whatever suits your surroundings. However, keep in mind that the sound quality of docks differs widely. So get into the groove with us as we test some of the best looking and best sounding iPod docks in the market today. We have also included a few portable Bluetooth speakers that can be used with cellphones, portable media players, laptops and other Bluetooth-enabled devices. were noted. We looked for remote control functions like audio mute, audio track navigation, audio source selection, tone controls, track shuffling, and alarm settings. The aesthetic appeal was also given points. Next, we analyzed the Build quality, which was scored on three core parameters - quality of the shell, the remote control, and if the body was scratch resistant. The most important area of testing was the Performance. After adjusting each speaker to the ideal audio level, a series of audio tracks was played using a PC connected to the speakers via the auxiliary input. Two audio tracks in each genre (Club, Electronica, Hindi, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Orchestra and Rock) were played, and scores were given depending on how the speakers handled music across all genres. Lastly, in the Warranty section, we noted the number of years of warranty offered by the manufacturers. The Best Value award was given to the speaker that could score the maximum points at the lowest retail price. This winner is arrived at by evaluating the ratio of the sum of the four sections against the retail price.
so pronounced that iPod has almost become synonymous with MP3 players. The iPod line up is refreshed every year with improved design and functionality to keep the craze going on. So, youre a proud owner of an iPod. What next? Youd want a funky case to jazz it up and protect it from dust and scratches. And who wouldnt want a gorgeous iPod dock to play music aloud? Some iPod docks go far beyond facilitating music listening and charging. Third party manufacturers integrate features such as alarm clock, video output and FM radio to offer something different. The integrated FM radio comes in handy when you want to listen to something other than what you have on your iPod or if you want to catch up on the news, while the alarm clock feature can replace your bedside clock. Your iPod will get charged while youre asleep and you can wake up to your favourite music instead of the annoying alarm beeps. Features aside, even the designs of these docks differ greatly. They come
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TEST CENTER
F&D i224
A decent option if you need An ipod dock on A tight budget.
Verdict
the Best Value award purely because of the features it offers for its price. You get the docking option along with FM radio, dual-alarm clock and line input. The F&D i224 weighs only about a kilo and sports a compact design, but its not a portable device because it doesnt have a built-in battery nor does it have a provision to add batteries. Going by the design and features, the F&D i224 is ideal for a bedside table, desktop or kitchen. The seven-segment display in the front shows the time, alarm, mode, and FM station. The device can be controlled entirely using the controls on top or the IR remote control. The four-way control to the left allows setting the time and date, scanning FM stations, choosing functions (FM radio, Aux and iPod), and toggling standby mode. To the right lie controls for alarms, volume and tuning FM stations manually. The wake up source can be set to FM radio, iPod or Aux. A big snooze button rests above the display and repeats the alarm after five minutes.
riced under Rs 3,000, the F&D i224 is the most affordable iPod dock in this roundup. It bagged
The IR remote control has all the controls that are present on the dock, plus buttons for mute, reset and tone. The tone function boosts the low frequencies and it actually enhances the sound quality. The overall sound quality is just about average. The tiny 2 Watt speakers in the front sound good at low and medium volume levels. You wouldnt want to pump the volume up too high, because they sound unpleasant with excessive mids and highs.The build quality of the dock is decent. It would have looked better if the top panel had a matte finish. Also, the FM antenna is just a thin wire that hangs carelessly from the rear. F&D should have provided a telescopic antenna instead or the antenna could have been detachable. On a better note, the i224 is easy to use and the provided user manual explains how to use the various functions step-wise in simple English. This dock is good value for money for those who want an affordable alternative. For: FM Radio, built-in antenna, dualalarm clock. AGAINST: Average sound quality, built in battery would have been nice.
SpeciFicationS
Rs 2,990
Dimensions (WxHxD): 12.2 x 7.6 x 2.1 in; Weight: 1.1 kg; Battery option: None; Additional functions: Clock with alarm and FM radio.
contact phone eMaiL
Fenda Audio 011-45020100 [email protected]
RatinGS
BUiLD QUaLitY FeatUReS peRFoRMance oveRaLL RatinG vaLUe FoR MoneY
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TEST CENTER
Harman Kardon Go + Play micro
arman Kardons Go + Play Micro looks almost identical to its big brother, the original Go + Play.
was good enough for standard definition movies, However, an HDMI port instead of the composite interface would have definitely helped. As far as other features go, it lacks FM radio and EQ. The Go + Play Micro can also be run on batteries and it takes eight C-cell batteries in its rear compartment to go portable for approximately 18 hours. The Micro is a sheer performer thanks to the four tweeters up front, as well as a woofer at the bottom. The audio quality is very clear and the power output is also great. It doesnt even distort at maximum output level. If you are looking for a great looking portable dock speaker system for your iPod or iPhone, we would recommend this one any day. Those looking for a similar performing speaker system with an iPod/iPhone dock in a lower budget could opt for the Jive Box from Logic 3. The audio is perfect, but the speaker takes a hit on build quality and aesthetics. For: Great sound, video output, good build, great aesthetics. AGAINST: IR remotes limited functionality, pretty heavy, requires eight C-size batteries.
In fact, why did they even bother adding the micro tag? It really isnt that much smaller. Though some key features were removed from the original, some have been added too. The build quality is excellent and the aesthetics are simply great. It has a tough metal handle that stretches all across the width of the speaker, which almost makes it look like a handbag or a press iron. It has a horizontal cradle for the iPod/iPhone. An IR remote lets you browse through your iPod/iPhone menu as well, but thats quite pointless as the screen is pretty much facing upwards, which means you cant really see whats on it. The remote just features track changing and volume controls, hence you need to use your player physically to shuffle tracks. As far as connectivity goes, the Go + Play Micro has an extra trick up its sleeve. Apart from the usual auxiliary inputs, this one also has a composite video output to enjoy videos and movies from your iPod/iPhone. We tested the output, and the video quality
An exceptionAl portAble speAker with video output cApAbilities.
Verdict
SPecificationS
Rs 12,490
Dimensions (WxHxD): 20 x 9 x 9.5 in; Weight: 3.9 kg; Battery option: 8 x C-type; Additional functions: Composite video out.
contact PHone email
Access 022-23840789 [email protected]
ratinGS
BUild QUality featUreS Performance overall ratinG valUe for money
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PORTABLE SPEAKERS COMPARiSON
TEST CENTER
personal take
SpecScan
Name
ANAND TULIANI [email protected] If you run your fingers through the prices, youll notice that most of the premium docks cost anywhere between Rs 9,000 to Rs 12,000. So be prepared to shell out that much if youre looking at a combination of good aesthetics and great sound. The cheaper models dont sound quite great and look too plain. If youre willing to spend up to Rs 10,000, I suggest you go in for the Logic 3 Jive Box. Its a simple dock with auxiliary input. So you can also connect your MP3 player and phone using a line-in cable with 3.5 mm connectors. Performancewise its almost at par with the Harman Kardon Go+Play Micro. With discrete drivers for low and mid-range frequencies, it outputs very good sound quality. The bundled remote control lets you control track navigation on the iPod, volume, bass and treble. Its cuboid design with an illuminated blue strip on the front bezel looks very cool. However, youll have to see to it that the glossy accents dont get mottled by fingerprints and scratches.
HarmaN/KardoN Go+Play micro Access 022-23840789 [email protected] Rs. 12,490

50 100 89 50
0 50 100
altec laNsiNG iNmotioN classic India Digital Life Style 022-43224123 [email protected] Rs. 8,990
69 99 66 50
0 50 100
contact Phone e-mail Price* overall Features (30%) Build quality (20%) Performance (40%) Warranty (10%) overall (out of 100) value For money Features dimensions Weight No. of drivers (speakers) docking port for iPod addl Functions: Clock FM Radio Bluetooth Wi-Fi Battery type line-in / aux in Built-in Fm antenna remote controller remote functions Mute Track Navigation
72
72
20 x 9 x 9.5 inch 3.90 Kg 3 4 6 6 6 6 8 x C type 4 6 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 5 5 4 5 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.25 4.5 4.25 4.75 1 year
12.9 x 5.9 x 1.9 inch 1.06 Kg 2 4 6 4 6 6 Built-in 4 4 4 4 4 4 6 6 6 4.5 5 4 4.5 3.75 3.75 3 3 3 3 3.5 1 year
FrANcIs D'sA [email protected] If I were to pick one of these speakers, it would possibly be the Creative D80, simply because I dont own an iPod or an iPad. The Creative D80 is a simple speaker system which can be clubbed with any mobile phone or a Bluetoothenabled media player or PC. But since I am concerned more about audio quality, I would rather stick to the Best Value winner, the F&D i224. The iPod dock would be useless for me, but the overall sound quality is definitely better than the D80. It features an FM radio with a built-in antenna and a clock with alarm function. It can be a great addition to my bedside or study table. If you are on a shoestring budget, you should definitely opt for the F&D. The look might not be as impressive as the others, but it is definitely provides good value for the money spent.
Source selection Bass / Treble control Shuffle tracks Alarm mode aesthetic appeal** Build Quality** Quality of shell Quality of remote control resistant to scratches PerFormaNce** club electronica Hindi Hip Hop Jazz orchestra rock WarraNty Warranty period
** out of 5
* Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra
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TEST CENTER
JBl oN air Wireless Access 022-23840789 [email protected] Rs. 24,990

63 63 76 50
0 50 100
loGic 3 Jive Box Access 022-23840789 [email protected] Rs. 8,999

39 68 89 50
0 50 100
creative Zii souNd d5 Creative Technology 9223101322 Rs. 17,999

29 95 82 50
0 50 100
loGitecH s715i Logitech India 9717597424 Rs. 9,995

57 62 64 100
0 50 100
JBl oN time micro Access 022-23840789 [email protected] Rs. 9,990

71 63 58 50
0 50 100
[email protected] [email protected]
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65
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9.37 x 11 x 7.8 inch 1.65 Kg 3 4 4 4 6 4 6 4 6 4 4 4 4 6 6 4 5 4.5 6 4.5 4 4.25 3.75 3.5 4 3.25 4 1 year
7.7 x 7.1 x 7.1 inch 2.48 Kg 3 4 6 6 6 6 6 4 6 4 4 4 6 4 6 6 4.5 5 6 4 4.25 5 4.5 4.5 4.75 4 4.25 1 year
16.7 x 3.5 x 4.3 inch 3.80 Kg 2 6 6 6 4 6 6 4 6 6 NA NA NA NA NA NA 5 5 4 2.5 4.5 4.5 4.25 3.5 4.25 3.75 4 1 year
15.2 x 5.2 x 2.4 inch 1.13 Kg 8 4 6 6 6 6 Built-in 4 6 4 6 4 6 6 4 6 4 4.5 6 4 3.5 3.75 3.25 3 3 2.5 3.5 2 years
8 x 4.8 x 8 inch 805 g 2 4 4 4 6 6 3 x AAA type 4 6 4 6 4 4 6 6 4 5 4.5 6 4.5 3.25 3.25 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.5 3 1 year
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TEST CENTER
8 SpecScan
Name contact Phone e-mail Price* overall Features (30%) Build quality (20%) Performance (40%) warranty (10%)
0
10
altec laNsiNg mooNdaNce glow India Digital Life Style 022-43224123 [email protected] Rs. 5,490
68 67 57 50
50 100
altec laNsiNg octiv duo India Digital Life Style 022-43224123 [email protected] Rs. 6,990
43 93 51 50
0 50 100
altec laNsiNg octiv stage India Digital Life Style 022-43224123 [email protected] Rs. 10,990
37 92 55 50
0 50 100
overall (out of 100) value For money Features dimensions weight No. of drivers (speakers) docking port for iPod addl Functions: Clock FM Radio Bluetooth Wi-Fi Battery type line-in / aux in Built-in Fm antenna remote controller remote functions Mute Track Navigation Source selection Bass / Treble control Shuffle tracks Alarm mode aesthetic appeal** Build Quality** Quality of shell Quality of remote control resistant to scratches PerFormaNce** club electronica Hindi Hip Hop Jazz orchestra rock warraNty warranty period
** out of 5
62
57
57
12.2 x 5.35 x 3.2 inch 1.13 Kg 2 4 4 4 6 6 9V External 4 6 4 6 4 4 6 6 4 4.5 5 6 3.5 3.25 3 3 2.75 2.5 2.5 3 1 year
10.7 x 3.8 x 5.7 inch 632 g 2 4 6 6 6 6 6 4 6 4 6 4 4 6 6 6 3.5 4.5 4 4.5 3.25 2.75 2.25 2.25 2.25 2 3 1 year
8.66 x 4.33 x 6.1 inch 1.17 Kg 2 4 6 6 6 6 6 4 6 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 3 4.5 4 4 3.25 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.5 2.5 2.75 1 year
* Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra
70
09/2011
TEST CENTER
11
12
13
14
JBl oN Beat Access 022-23840789 [email protected] Rs. 9,990

43 63 63 50
0 50 100
altec laNsiNg iNmotioN max India Digital Life Style 022-43224123 [email protected] Rs. 11,990
61 61 49 50
0 50 100
F&d i224 Fenda Audio 011-45020100 [email protected] Rs. 2,990

60 56 35 50
0 50 100
creative d80 Creative Technology 9223101322 [email protected] Rs. 2,699

27 83 40 50
0 50 100
56
55
48
46
10.8 x 5.3 x 5.7 inch 927 g 2 4 6 6 6 6 6 4 6 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 5 4.5 6 4.5 3.5 3 3.25 3 3 3 3.5 1 year
12.2 x 7.6 x 2.1 inch 1.1 Kg 2 4 6 4 6 6 Built-in 4 6 4 6 4 4 6 6 6 4.5 4.5 6 3.5 3 2.5 2 2.25 2.5 2.25 2.75 1 year
10.4 x 2.9 x 7 inch 805 g 2 4 4 4 6 6 6 4 4 6 4 4 4 6 6 4 3.5 4 6 4 2.25 2 2 1.75 1.75 1 1.75 1 year
12.7 x 3.93 x 3.93 inch 1.02 Kg 2 6 6 6 4 6 6 4 6 6 NA NA NA NA NA NA 3 4 4 2.5 2.5 2 2 2 1.75 1.5 2.25 1 year
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TESTED
software spotlight
SecuriTy SuiTe
McAfee fAMily Protection

VerdIct: Slightly expensive, but provides adequate monitoring for home users. for: Effective monitoring, customizable, covers IM and social networks. agaInst: Slows down browsing speed, doesn't include antivirus or firewall, expensive.
ith the widespread benefits and learning opportunities that the Internet provides, it has become allows quick modification for all existing users that are being monitored. User customization for separate functions is available with individual tabs. For example, the Social Networking tab allows administrators an option to input personal information (like street address, school name, cell phone number) that needs to be monitored. Overall, it offers a very simplistic UI, which could prove helpful for novices.
a pre-requisite in every household. However, it does have an equally powerful potential to wreak havoc for children, with increasing reports of online child abuse, adult content sites, security threats, and so on. This could actually hamper a childs development and nurturing, and hence, software that could help monitor Internet activities could be beneficial. McAfee's Family Protection suite provides Internet activity monitoring, but is it good enough to protect your child from all the objectionable content on the Internet?
features
The McAfee Family Protection suites primary task is to block adult content, cyber bullying, contact with strangers, and objectionable Youtube videos. In addition to that, it also offers social network monitoring, instant message reporting, email alerting, and setting time limits. The application allows blocking of up to 35 categories of objectionable websites at a time, as well as recording instant messaging to inform administrators in the event that conversations with strangers are noticed. Chatting on social networking sites is also recorded in case of solicitation from strangers or posting of confidential information. The suite offers monitoring support for AOL, ICQ, Microsoft Windows Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. Currently, there is no option to supervise Google
Interface
The McAfee Family Protection suite has a simple and easy-to-use interface with variable levels of user customization. Upon logging in as administrator, users are allowed to choose between four preset options of protection levels based on the age group. The available options are - children from zero to seven, pre-teens, teens, and adults, with the level of protection being highest for the first and gradually lowering as the age group increases. A complete family summary is charted out on the main screen that
Content can be filtered for users depending on their age and maturity.
You can choose to block websites unsuitable for viewing by the user.
The degree to which you wish to block content type can be customized from the drop down lists.
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SMS us! Story code: TSM to 51818
ON dvd
red Hot aPPLicationS
iClone4 EX CrazyTalk Animator PRO
You can monitor your child's activity on social networking websites and also block access.
SEPTEMBER 2011
Toon Boom Studio 6.0 Swift 3D v6 and more...
fULL SoftWare
Windows Live Writer 2011 15.4.3538.0513 LibreOffice 3.4.2 RC 1 OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 Build 9567 Final AbiWord 2.9.1 Beta and more...
KIso 0.8.3 Superman V.S. Brainiac 2.0 Win2-7 6.6 Beta nVidia Linux Display Driver x86 275.19 and more... Yahoo! Messenger 11.0.0.2009 OperaTor 3.5 and more...
Chat or Skype. Security threats, most often found in peer-to-peer file sharing software, can be blocked. Activity reports provide a complete view of all Internet and IM activity, which can be used as a tool to teach appropriate online behavior. Along with the above options, the McAfee Family Protection suite allows automated email reception in case access to an inappropriate website is attempted.
fULL GameS
Galli Cricket 1.3 Super Motocross Africa 1.13 Ultra Nitro Racers 1.15 Extreme Jungle Racers 1.0 Arctic Boot Camp Blitz and more...
MOBILE
Performance
Upon installation, the software utilizes very few system resources (12 MB on the task manager) and requires an initial 10 MB of hard disk space. To start off, we created four different levels of monitoring based on age groups. The software worked brilliantly with the preset customizations that it provided. Email blocking, Youtube video blocking, website filtering - all of it worked seamlessly. However, user customization started throwing up a few problems. Access to Gmail was blocked even after changing the option via the administrators profile. We tried another alternative; switching between users to check the speed of response of the software. The transition was slow as websites which got unblocked took around a minute to load. This could be a downer for people wanting fast Internet access. The software also started popping up a few annoying notifications at regular intervals. On the other hand, if any user besides the administrator tries to initiate a log out, Internet access is cut off unless the user logs in again. This provides for complete parental control.
Game demoS
mac
MAC TOOLS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 FPS Terminator Demo Alpha 2.0.1 DreamRace 1.1 Chicken Invaders 3: Revenge of the Yolk Easter Edition 3.72 Chicken Invaders 4: Ultimate Omlette 4.04 and more...
Game add onS
GTA Vice City Patch 1.1 Call of Duty 5: World at War Patch 1.7 Need for Speed: Most Wanted Patch 1.3 Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Patch 1.26a Rome Total War Patch 1.5 The Sims 3 Patch 1.19.4 and more...
avast! BlackBerry Desktop Manager 2.1.1.7 Dropbox 1.1.35 Mozilla Firefox 5.0.1 Google Chrome Adobe Flash Player Opera 11.50 Build 1074 Final RealPlayer Skype 5.2.0.1572 StuffIt Expander 2011 15.0.2 TeamViewer 6.0.10370 and more...
Google+ 1.0.1.1809 Samsung Kies 2.0.1.11053_99_3 Nokia PC Suite 7.1.62.1 Phone Manager 0.9.0 BETA iPhone Explorer 2.111 and more...
SECURITy
tooLS
MULTIMEDIA
Game traiLerS
SpecificatiONS
Rs 2,270
Verdict
The three-PC license is available for Rs 2,270, which is a little steep for home users as it does not include an antivirus or firewall. But if monitoring content is a priority, this product could be worth it. - Karan Shah
DiRT 3 - Monaco Guild Wars 2 - Ascalonian Catacombs Cinematic Dragons Dogma - E3 2011 Cinematic 1 Resistance 3 - E3 2011 Darksiders II - E3 2011 Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations Announcement and more...
Googles Music Manager ACDSee Pro 4.0 Build 237 MAGIX Video easy HD Sculptris Alpha 6 Synfig 0.63.00 FaceFilter Studio Toonworks Deluxe 1.01 Abrosoft FantaMorph Pro 5.2 JetPhoto Studio 4.10.2 JAlbum 9.5 MobaPhoto 1.42 MobaLiveCD 2.1 Foto2Avi 3.3 Umile Encoder 3.0.12 Flash Player Pro Klaok 0.906 and more...
Norton 360 Premier Edition 5.1.0.29 McAfee Family Protection Fix-it Utilities Professional 10.4.2.0 Panda Internet Security 2012 17.00.00 Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 12.0.0.374 K7 AntiVirus Plus 11.1.0039 Outpost Security Suite Pro 7.5.1.3791.596.1681.481 MicroWorld Free AntiVirus Toolkit Utility (MWAV) and more...
SySTEM
Simple Shop 1.9.6.2 Zip2Fix 1.0 ZIP File Recovery Free 1.0.0.0 Office Tab Free Edition 7.00 Windows 7 Little Tweaker 1.2 Ocster Backup Freeware 1.71 Smart Recovery 2 B11.032201 Xleaner 3.4.0.5 and more...
MUST HAvES
www.mcafee.com
SyStem RequiRemeNtS
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7; RAM: 128 MB; Disk space: 10 MB.

cONtact pHONe emaiL McAfee
LinUx
INTERNET
LINUX DISTRIBUTION
PCLinuxOS 2011.6
022-4029-1300 [email protected]
LINUX TOOLS
RatiNGS
featuReS peRfORmaNce eaSe Of uSe OveRaLL RatiNG vaLue fOR mONey
Furius ISO Mount 0.11.3.1 K3b 2.0.2 FBReader 0.12.10 BasKet Note Pads 2.0 Beta 2 Adobe Flash Player for Linux 11.0.1.60 Beta 1
GClient 2012 1.0 Google +1 Plus One Extension Connectify 2.2.0.18699 SmarterStats Free Edition 6.3.4212 Core FTP Pro 2.2 Build 1687 Scotts Gmail Alert 5.5.7.4 Voice Changer Software Diamond 7.0 Kastor - All Video Downloader 1.8 easyMule 2.0.0.0 Beta
ATI Catalyst Drivers 11.6 XP / Vista NVIDIA Forceware 275.33 WHQL XP / Vista DirectX 9.0c (Jun 10) Java Runtime Environment 1.6.0.25 (32-bit) and more...
ADOBE PLAyERS
Flash Player 11.0.1.60 Beta 1 (IE) Flash Player 11.0.1.60 Beta 1 (Non-IE) and more...
e-bookS
CHIP ARCHIvES
April 2011 to June 2011
TEST CENTER
TESTED
A well-designed pAckAge for the serious photogrApher.
Verdict
ACDSee Pro 4
For: Geo tagging, easy to use. AgAinst: Expensive.
Managing photos is a breeze with the informative user interface of ACDSee Pro 4.
Image database utIlIty
f your digital photo album is bursting at the seams, it's time to upgrade to an image database - the only way
requires the GPS positions to be entered manually in the integrated Google Maps screen. Simply select it and the rest is done via batch processing by ACDSee Pro. Subsequent fine adjustments are possible without great effort; it moves the marker coupled with the photo on the map, which is simple and practical. ACDSee Pro 4 also has many smaller additions and a lot of fine tuning. Those who often work with metadata can use EXIF and IPTC entries, which can be finally put together in the required fields and can be saved as presets. The tools for correcting chromatic aberration and fringing are now available. In the test run, we were able to achieve good results, although the result is always dependent on the source material. The same applies to the new vignette (image distortions caused by camera lens errors) correction. In addition to these fundamental changes, ACDSee Pro 4 is characterized mainly by workflow corrections. These include reduced working steps and streamlined menus. - [email protected]
to make photo collections beyond the limit of 10,000 images efficient, quickly searchable, and organized. For the newly released ACDSee Pro 4, these jobs are routine. At the first run itself, the database index sorts all the images independently and neatly into so-called categories, which covers approximately shutter speed, ISO. file size and screen format. Then begins the actual work of cataloging by hand. ACDSee Pro 4 now supports photographs with geo tagging, which is the real highlight of this version. Photos that already include geo tags are tagged on a world view preview pane so they can be easy to identify. You can also formulate complex queries, such as begins at 48 degrees latitude and longitude contains 11 or add additional parameters. Both the query and the result can be saved as its own topic category. If the spatial data is missing, ACDSee can write it in the respective EXIF field, but this
SPeCifiCAtionS
$240 (approx Rs 11,300)

www.acdsee.com
SyStem requirementS
OS: Windows XP or higher; Processor: Intel Pentium III or higher; Memory: 512 MB or higher; Disk space: 250 MB.
ContACt PHone emAiL ACD Systems International Inc.
NA NA
rAtinGS
feAtureS PerformAnCe eASe of uSe overALL rAtinG vALue for money
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The mosT feaTure-packed sysTem Tuning uTiliTy.
Verdict
AvAnquest Fix-it utilities 11 Pro

For: Plenty of features, good UI, virus and spyware protection. AgAinst: Didnt seem very effective.
SyStem tuning utility
The Overview shows the overall health of the system which can be restored to full with One-Click Fix All.
f youre frustrated with your system slowing down, freezing and crashing, you need a good system tuning utility.
graphs. Advanced users may customize the modules and tune their PCs the way they want, but even here, the suite has a collection of its own tools along with Windows tools. Some tools, such as disk checking and defragmenting, are useful, but others, such as Memory Optimizer are gimmicky. The latter didnt produce any effective results because Windows itself manages RAM the best. The overall end result wasnt too convincing; only the start-up time improved by 13 seconds, but the PC with Windows XP was cluttered and packed with software installations. Test systems running Windows Vista and 7 slowed down because the suite itself adds services that run at start up. The PCmark score showed a slight improvement in Windows XP, which mainly was due to defragmentation, but with Windows Vista and 7, the suite didnt quite enhance system performance. - [email protected]
The Fix-It Utilities Pro installation is straightforward, without any hurdles. However, the software doesnt feature the auto-update function. This tuning suite has numerous features and it can take quite a long time to understand each and every function. From a registry clean up utility to malware protection, the list of features doesnt seem to end. The interface is intuitive, but due to the abundance of functions, it can seem puzzling at times. The home screen showed three graphs 37 percent Overall, 64 percent Security, and 10 percent Maintenance. There is no explanation as to what the figures and colors on the bars indicate, but they actually show the current status of the PCs health. There is a One-click Maintenance button, which should resolve all issues and improve the
sPeciFicAtions
3 PC License: $49.95 (approx Rs 2,250)

www.avanquest.com
system requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7; RAM: 256 MB; Drive space: NA.

contAct emAil Avanquest Software
NA
rAtinGs
FeAtures PerFormAnce eAse oF use overAll rAtinG vAlue For money
09/2011
75
TEST CENTER
TESTED
A fun App for morphing Anything into Anything.
Verdict
Abrosoft fAntAMorph pro

After plotting the points, the morph can be exported to multiple formats.
Morphing Tool
For: Very easy to use, multiple morphs, lots of options. AgAinst: None.
W
specificAtions
ith a morphing tool such as FantaMorph Pro, you can morph between two or more
sound track (WAV and MP3 format). The action starts in the next step, wherein you have to map the elements in the source image to that of the destination. Using the mouse pointer, you have to place dots on the source image and adjust the position of the corresponding dot in the destination by dragging it. The dots define the morphing process and hence, the higher the number of dots, the smoother and more realistic the morph looks. At any point, you can preview the result in the preview pane below the work area. After youre done with placing the dots, the final step is to export the movie to the desired format. It takes anything between a few seconds to a couple of minutes for the export process to complete depending on the number of frames and length of the movie youve specified. The software is extremely easy to use and the end results look great. - Anand Tuliani
images and export the final result to an AVI or Flash movie, animated GIF, screensaver or a standalone executable file. Although morphing seems complicated, FantaMorph presents a userfriendly interface to morph images. You start with the new project wizard, where you have to choose the type of project Morph, Warp or Multiple Morph. A warp is creating action out of a single image file, for example, winking or raising eyebrows. In the next step, you choose the source and destination images and proceed to editing them. You can crop, rotate, adjust color balance and change aspect ratio of the images. Next, you have to set the movie resolution, duration and frame rate. The Movie Effects in the next step allows you to add captions and effects such as background color, shape masks and
$59.95 (approx Rs 2,700)

www.fantamorph.com
systeM requireMents
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7; RAM: 512 MB; Drive space: 10 MB.

contAct phone eMAiL Abrosoft
NA [email protected]
rAtinGs
feAtures perforMAnce eAse of use overALL rAtinG vALue for Money
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TESTED
May seeM basic, but perforMs well and is ideal for beginners.
Verdict
Magix Video easy 3 Hd

Videos can be color edited and audio volumes (along with background music) can be tweaked easily.
Video editing
For: Ease of use, lots of presets and options, simple UI. AgAinst: Can be a bit confusing in the beginning.
his video editor shines by cleverly reducing its features to just the essentials. Although it offers only
with a simple menu, either from disk or imported directly from the camcorder/ camera. A rich selection of effects ensures attractive transitions, and you can also use a sound track for background music. Cutting of clips is possible with a simple click of the mouse and positioning them can be done via drag and drop. Photos can also be inserted wherever youd like. Brightness, contrast and saturation levels can be set for each clip too. The pace and direction of the clip can also be changed rapidly, and slow motion and fast motion effects are also possible. Title text can be inserted easily with animation and additional effects such as shadows or edges. A preview offers a glimpse at any time in the current processing state. In the end, the finished film can be saved to the hard drive, burned to a DVD, or uploaded to the Internet directly. iPhone and iPad outputs are also possible. - [email protected]
one video track, it also allows audio and video tracks to be used separately, which is beneficial. A second audio track can also be applied to record comments directly from a microphone and then integrated into the film. This does not disturb the original sound, and you can additionally turn down the volume of the original video clip too. The videos can also be rotated or flipped, and even basic image stabilization has been done to correct slightly blurred images. We edited three HD videos with easy, simple operations and got fast, tangible results. Even on somewhat weak computers, the tool does its job quickly and reliably. The quickest way is to select the Auto Editor option. The user only needs to place the various clips in the correct order and the program does the rest. Clips are imported
specifications
$40 (approx Rs 1,900)

www.magix.com
systeM RequiReMents
OS: Windows XP and above; Processor: Pentium 4 or higher; RAM 1 GB or higher; Disk space: 150 MB.
contact pHone eMaiL MAGIX AG
+1-305 722 5810 NA
Ratings
featuRes peRfoRMance ease of use oVeRaLL Rating VaLue foR Money
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TEST CENTER
TESTED
Antivirus utility
imAge editing utility
pdf converter
eScanaV antiViruS toolkit

Verdict: A must-have instant and installation-free antivirus toolkit. For: No installation required, daily updates, free. AgAinst: None. SpecificationS
JetPhoto Studio
Verdict: A simple utility for basic editing and managing images. For: Create Web albums, geo tagging module, easy to use. AgAinst: Doesnt support captions for Flickr uploads, should have had more filters. SpecificationS
7PdF Printer
Verdict: A good tool for pros, but better free tools are available. For: Easy to use, customizable. AgAinst: UI could be better, no PDF printing presets.
SpecificationS
Freeware
www.escanav.com
SyStem RequiRementS
Freeware
www.jetphotosoft.com
SyStem RequiRementS
Freeware
www.7-pdf.de
SyStem RequiRementS
OS: Windows XP or higher; Disk space: 160 MB.

contact pHone emaiL MicroWorld Technologies Inc.
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/Mac OS X; RAM: 512 MB; Disk space: 30 MB.

contact pHone emaiL JetPhoto Software
OS: Windows 7, 2000, Vista, XP; Disk space: 10 MB.

contact pHone emaiL Th. Hodes Software
+1 248 8552020 [email protected]
RatinGS
featuReS peRfoRmance eaSe of uSe oveRaLL RatinG vaLue foR money
RatinGS
featuReS peRfoRmance eaSe of uSe oveRaLL RatinG
RatinGS
featuReS peRfoRmance eaSe of uSe oveRaLL RatinG vaLue foR money
ScanAV Antivirus Toolkit is a free utility for scanning and
protecting against viruses, malware and keyloggers, etc. The self-running utility needs no installation and can be run irrespective of whether any other antivirus is installed. Updates are available on a daily basis and include the scanning engine for improved detections. The interface is simple, with options to scan and clean the memory, startup folders, registry, system files, folders and sub folders and external drives. The View Network Activity feature can sniff out TCP and UDP packages flowing through the network card, highlighting the running software processes and network connections along with the port numbers to enable the user to know of any unknown or viral activities. This is a must-have antivirus and anti-malware toolkit for service engineers and home users. Francis Dsa
etPhoto Studio presents a simple user interface to import images from
folders, digital cameras and scanners, and manage them using EXIF info, geo data and star ratings. It organizes photos in albums. While viewing images, you can adjust brightness, contrast and color balance. You can auto enhance and rotate images and add black and white or sepia effects. Wizards help you to create Web galleries (Flash, Lightbox and Cover Flow) and albums, upload to Flickr, and crop images for phones. You can select the phone brand and model and it automatically crops the image for the specific models screen. Custom resolutions can also be specified. JetPhoto Studio features a module for managing geo data, mapping geo-tagged photos and searching for photos on the map. It is easy to use and the help is Web-based. Anand Tuliani
he 7PDFPrinter offers a clean way to convert documents and
images into PDF files. Once installed, it adds in your list of printers. Unlike other feature-rich PDF printers, the setup doesnt offer you any predefined settings. While you can create colored and black/white PDFs in a variety of page sizes, you will have to play around with the advanced features to alter the setup of the PDF. You will have to know your way around your printer settings to get your PDF settings right. You can alter the color mode and settings to use the PDF on screen as an ebook, to print or to use it for prepress, embed fonts or compress pages. You can setup the PDF compatibility settings and compress images to your liking. Although it is not the most complicated software to use, it could have been more streamlined, with a better UI that offered predefined PDF presets. Kamakshi Venugopal
09/2011
79
TEST CENTER
TESTED
Game
GemCraft
$1.99 (approx Rs 91)
iPhone, iPod touch, iPad; iOS 3.1.3
Overall rating
is challenging and varied enough to keep you hooked. You have to place gems of various colors around a predefined track; each color represents a special bonus power and gems can be combined to multiply bonuses. Through each level, larger waves of monsters will try to reach your tower. If any do, theyre transported back to the beginning, costing you mana, but giving your gems another go at taking them down. As you progress through the game and level up, you can customize your skills and unlock more modes, which include Endurance, Sudden Death, and Heroic. - Jamshed Avari
Utility
Planets
Free
iPhone, iPod touch, iPad; iOS 3.0
Overall rating
horizon and even manually scroll around to see whats where. The app also includes a 2D map, a few basic facts and figures about each heavenly body, and a cool animated globe that shows the exact line between night and day at any given moment. The stars arent clickable and there are no links to encyclopedia articles about the heavenly bodies, which would have been fascinating. - Jamshed Avari
Tower defense games work pretty well on touchscreen phones, and GemCraft is perhaps the most delightful one yet. Although the graphics are a bit crude and youll run across a few bugs, gameplay
If youve ever looked up at the stars in the sky and wondered what constellations they were, Planets will fascinate you. Using your iPhone or iPads compass and accelerometer, the app shows whatevers in the night sky as if its in front of you. Hold your device up and as you move it around, a 3D map of the visible universe dances across the screen. The app even shows you where all the planets are, and you can peek below the
Game
at the results. Your sheep can fly through the air and bounce off the ground, blissfully ignoring all laws of physics. If it lands on a trampoline or barrel of TNT, itll bounce further and stay aloft longer (laws of real-world physics notwithstanding). If it hits a spike in the ground, itll instantly die. You cant do anything to control the sheep once its airborne, much less direct where it lands. You cant guide it to explosives or avoid spikes, making each turn depend purely on blind luck. Sheep Cannon is amusing the first few times you play it, but it relies solely on childish cartoon violencethe kind that gets old too quickly. - Jamshed Avari
Utility
usual social services. However, you cant quickly search across multiple engines and compare the results. Splitscreen view on the iPad is a failure, with Twitter and Wikipedia only running their mobile sites in the narrow column, leaving two thirds of the screen useless. Youtube results are replicated in both panes, but Ehow is presented perfectly. There were some good ideas here, but the finished product is an immense letdown. - Jamshed Avari
Sheep Cannon
Free
iPhone, iPod touch, iPad; iOS 3.1
Overall rating
Flex Search
Free
iPhone, iPod touch, iPad
Overall rating
If youre looking for fun yet challenging games that will help you build up any kind of skill, Sheep Cannon is not a good choice. In fact, theres not much to this game at all, apart from launching sheep out of a cannon and laughing
Flex Search claims to speed up the task of searching for information online by organizing query options and results on your screen. While it does provide quick access to a number of different engines, delivery falls short because theres no real difference between simply searching through your browser (or a native app). You get shortcuts to Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, WolframAlpha, Ehow, Flickr and the
80
09/2011
TEST CENTER
TESTED
Security
Android AppS
Norton Mobile Security

NA
Android
Overall rating
TubeMate YouTube Downloader

Free
Android
Overall rating
Norton Mobile Security for Android features anti-theft, anti-malware, call and SMS blocking, and Web protection modules. The anti-theft module helps you locate your phone, lock it and wipe sensitive data on your phone by sending messages along with your password from trusted cell phone numbers. The anti-malware function scans for malicious files on the phone and SD card. The call and SMS blocking feature, as the name suggests, is similar to blacklisting contacts you wish to avoid. Although the functions are limited, they are very useful for securing your data and privacy from miscreants. The validity of the subscription is three years and you have to activate it within three days from the time you install it. - Anand Tuliani
Several Youtube downloading applications are available for PCs, but TubeMate helps download videos directly onto your Android phone in .MP4 or .FLV format, with the option to choose between resolution sizes depending on your handhelds display size. Resolution sizes from 320 x 240 all the way up to 1920 x 1080 are available. The application is very easy to operate and the options menu can be set to options such as download queuing and fast download modes. Audio tracks can also be extracted while downloading the video and saved as MP3 files. Favorite videos can be shared via Google Buzz, Twitter or even emailed directly from the application. - Francis Dsa
Android AppS
M-coMMerce
Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer

Free
Android
Overall rating
Obopay
Free
Symbian, Android, Windows
Overall rating
Obopay is a unique mobile banking solution launched by Nokia, Yes Bank, and Union Bank of India. What sets it apart is that it doesnt require you to provide sensitive data like bank account, credit/ debit card number, etc. Its a standalone app with its own alarms and timers and using the volume buttons for lap/ reset functions. The ideal use for this app is to keep time during sports and training. Similar apps are available, but we find this one to be simple, powerful, multifunctional and, most of all, it's free. - Francis Dsa unique account number, and since its a prepaid account, you have the choice of limiting the amount you wish to keep in it. To get Obopay on your phone, you will have to go to a Nokia Priority Dealer, complete the KYC process to open an account in either of the banks, and download the application. After you deposit the amount of your choice with the Nokia Dealer, the same will reflect in your Obopay account. You can send/withdraw money, pay bills and prepaid top-ups and even transfer money directly to other Obopay users. If you wish to withdraw money, you can go to the Nokia Priority Dealer and do so without any hassles. - Priyanka Tilve
This app is a stopwatch and timer, with analog as well as digital display options. It features minutes, seconds and lap hands and the timer has a circular representation of the remaining time. Options for beep reminders, timer logs and best laps can be set. The stopwatch is skinnable too. The preferences menu allows you options such as keeping the screen on continuously, display intensity, sound/ beeps, vibrations, using phone ringtones, using audio out for
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TEST CENTER
long term
Long Term Test

Canon ImageClass MF4412
MFD
The CHIP Test Center steps out into the real world!
Social Tool
Tweetdeck
ono laser printers outperform
witter can often be a confusing mess. Once youve started following 10 or more people, it becomes really difficult to keep up with all the updates. The further
you scale up, the less practical it becomes to read every single post, and then of course important information might slip past undetected. Even worse, some people post updates constantly, and searches for real-time news, which Twitter excels at, update far too quickly to be read. Twitter allows users to create lists in order to filter users, but the website interface is clunky at best. The solution lies in separating Twitter as a service from its own website. If it wasnt for mobile phone clients, wed never have the kind of real-time updates and photo sharing that we do today. Similarly, dozens of third-party clients exist for the desktop, which improve upon the default experience in some way. Tweetdecks genius feature is the organization of Twitter lists into columns that are displayed simultaneously and can be read at a glance. You can also quickly create and edit lists, allowing you to weed out people who spam your timelines and cultivate those whose posts are genuinely useful. Search results are displayed in their own columns, which can easily be left visible or knocked off when they arent useful anymore. Most importantly, you can immediately see when you have new mentions and direct messages, which are easy to miss on the website. Tweetdeck has completely changed the way I use Twitter. I once dismissed Twitter entirely, not seeing the whole point. Now, however, I have one monitor on my desk with Tweetdeck maximized at all times and I genuinely feel more productive. Theres one column for followers updates, one for PR and journalists, one for corporate accounts, and several for current trends and stories I might be interested in following. More than Twitter itself, Tweetdeck has improved the way I work. - Jamshed Avari
inkjets in print quality, speed and economy. Plus, you dont have to worry about cartridges getting clogged or dried up. If you want the functionality of a photocopying machine as well, you can opt for a mono laser MFD such as the Canon ImageClass MF4412, which Ive been using for over a month now without any problems. With a monthly duty cycle of 10,000 pages, its intended for homes and small offices. The footprint of this machine is as much as an inkjet MFD, but being a laser printer, its taller and has a boxy design. But the build quality is excellent and thankfully, Canon hasnt gone in with glossy exteriors that invite scratches and fingerprints. For an MFD, some sort of a display is a must so that the user can set the paper size, enlarge/reduction ratio, print quality, and so on. The MF4412 sports a dot matrix LCD display, along with a five-way d-pad and a few other buttons for menu navigation. It isnt confusing because there arent many options, but the ones offered are useful. What we really liked is the list of copying ratios, which mentions the percentage size as well as the paper size. Other functions include Toner Saver mode for copying, maintenance tasks, sleep timer and status (print job, page counter, and so on). Now, for the most important aspects speed and print economy. We completely exhausted the starter cartridge that came with the printer and two standard cartridges purchased separately. We printed a 5% text document on the basis of which printer manufacturers arrive at the claimed yields. In Normal mode, the starter cartridge and standard cartridge yielded 1,460 and 3,550 prints respectively. In Toner Saver mode, the yield went up to 6,140 prints. Considering the standard cartridge costs Rs 4,495 (MRP), the cost per print in Normal mode and Toner Saver modes comes to Rs 1.30 and 73 paise respectively. The printer prints at an impressive 24 pages per minute, and the print quality is very good. The market price of the MF4412 is Rs 10,800, which we feel is great value for money. It costs twice as much as basic mono laser printer, but here you get good speed and economy, plus scanner and copier functions. - Anand Tuliani
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T EST CENT TE T CE NT TEST CEN E R ES C NTER CENTER

PC CONF S C CONFIG C FIGS CONFIGS
Samsung Galaxy S2 Rs 30,000

www.samsung.com
verdict This one's a pocket bomb!

Incredible features in a super-sleek form factor. love Excellent display, lots of storage space, full HD video recording, sleek design. hate None.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 116 g; CPU: Dual-core 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9; Graphics: Mali-400MP; Display: 4.3-in Super AMOLED Plus, 480x800; Memory: 16 GB; Camera: 8 MP; Video: 1080p, 30 fps; OS: Android 2.3.
ANAND'S PICKS
HIGH-END ANDROID PHONES

The top ve most powerful Android phones in the market.
HTC Sensation Rs 29,500
www.htc.com/in
HTC Incredible S Rs 24,500

www.htc.com/in
verdict A brilliant phone, but miles behind

the winner in terms of features. love High-resolution display, full HD video recording, dual-core CPU. hate Very heavy, less storage space.
verdict A truly incredible phone with

great features for an attractive price.
love Rugged build, great pricing. hate No 1080p video recording,

Android 2.2.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 148 g; CPU: Dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon; Graphics: Adreno 220; Display: 4.3-in S-LCD, 540x960; Memory: 1 GB; Camera: 8 MP; Video: 1080p, 30 fps; OS: Android 2.3.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 135 g; CPU: 1 GHz Scorpion; Graphics: Adreno 205; Display: 4-in S-LCD, 480x800; Memory: 1.1 GB; Camera: 8 MP; Video: 720p, 30 fps; OS: Android 2.2.
LG Optimus 2x Rs 25,500
www.lg.com/in
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Rs 28,000

www.sonyericsson.com
verdict The cheapest dual-core phone in

the market with a very good feature set. love Great display, good build. hate Heavy.
verdict Would you pay for the sleek

design or pick the best phone for Rs 2,000 more? love Sleek design, great camera. hate No 1080p video recording, very less storage space, expensive.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 139 g; CPU: Dual-core 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9; Graphics: Nvidia Tegra 2; Display: 4-in IPS, 480x800; Memory: 8 GB; Camera: 8 MP; Video: 1080p, 24 fps; OS: Android 2.2.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 117 g; CPU: 1 GHz Scorpion; Graphics: Adreno 205; Display: 4.2-in S-LCD, 480x854; Memory: 320 MB; Camera: 8 MP; Video: 720p, 30 fps; OS: Android 2.3.
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ANAND'S COLUMN PC CONFIGS
TEST CENTER
A RIG WITH THE LATEST HARDWARE FOR UNDER RS 60,000.

ANAND TULIANI, DEPUTY EDITOR - TECHNICAL
SANDY BRIDGE GAMING PC

ts easier to build a gaming PC with a limited budget in hand if the core components cost less. But if you want the latest high-end hardware, you have to be choosy about the components. If youre on a really tight budget, you can opt for the most entry-level Sandy Bridge CPU, the Intel Core i3-2100, which costs Rs 6,200. If you want more processing power and overclocking capabilities as well, go in for the Intel Core i5-2500K, but it will set you back Rs 4,600 more. Moving on, the Intel DZ68DB, which is the most affordable Intel Z68 chipset motherboard, costs slightly less than Rs 8,000. However, it lacks the goodness of all-solid capacitors, multi-GPU support, and ample cooling. The next best options are the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 and the Asus P8Z68V. The latter is a much better option, with CrossFire support in dual x8 mode, UEFI BIOS and superior performance, but it costs Rs 2,600 more. The next most important component is the graphics card.
Component Model
CPU Motherboard Memory Hard Disk Graphics Card Optical Drive Monitor PC Case Power Supply Input Device Speakers OS
Intel Core I3-2100 Gigabyte Z68ap-D3 2 X 2 GB Zion Ddr3-1333 WD Caviar Blue, 1 TB Zotac Geforce GTX 550 Ti LG GH22 SATA 22x DVD-Writer Benq V2200 Eco, 22-inch LED Cooler Master Elite 430 Black Corsair Cmpsu-430CX Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop Altec Lansing Vs2621 Windows 7 Home Premium
If you want to play all the latest games comfortably at full HD resolution without spending much, then I recommend the Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 (Rs 12,500). However, a GTX 560 Ti (Rs 15,000) is recommended for a mid-range gaming rig. If your budget is absolutely low, then the GTX 550 Ti (Rs 8,800) should make you happy. The rest of the components are easy to choose. A stick of standard 2 GB DDR3 RAM costs Rs 1,200, but if you wish to overclock, be prepared to spend a few thousand Rupees more for low latency modules. A 1 TB WD Caviar Blue hard drive is recommended for mid-range rigs, but if you want extreme performance, I suggest going in for an SSD as your system drive and a WD Caviar Black as the secondary storage. The BenQ V2200 Eco, which is currently retailing for Rs 11,300, is a great monitor. The choice of cabinet is subjective. I would settle for the Cooler Master Elite 430 Black, which sports a blue Price (Rs) LED fan and transparent side 6,200 panel. The Corsair CMPSU9,800 430CX should be enough to 2,400 handle an entry-level gaming 3,000 rig. The Corsair CMPSU8,800 600CX should be ideal for 950 mid-range gaming PCs. 11,300 An entry-level Sandy 2,800 Bridge gaming rig with all 2,200 1,700 the hardware along with a 1,895 Windows 7 Home Premium 6,200 license should cost around 57,245 Rs 57,000.
THE CORE I3-2100 IS GOOD VALUE FOR BUDGET GAMING RIGS.
[email protected]
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PC CONFIG PC CONFIGS CONFIGS GS
PC CONFIGS
GAMING - ENTRY-LEVEL
Processor Motherboard RAM Hard disk Graphics card Optical drive Monitor Keyboard Mouse Speakers Sound card PC Case Power supply unit Operating system AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Ed, 3.3 GHz Asus M4A88T-M, AMD 880G 2 GB Zion DDR3-1333 MHz Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - 1 TB SATA Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 - 1 GB DDR5 LG GH22 SATA 22x DVD-writer Dell IN2020M LED - 20-inch LCD Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop Included in Combo F&D FD600 Onboard high-definition audio Cooler Master Elite 310 Coolermaster GX 450W Windows 7 Home Basic
Rs 44,040
5,800 5,200 1,200 3,000 7,300 950 6,300 1,700 2,990 1,800 3,500 4,300 44,040
GAMING - MID-RANGE
Processor Motherboard RAM Hard disk Graphics card Optical drive Monitor Keyboard Mouse Speakers Sound card PC Case Power supply unit Operating system AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 2.8 GHz Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H, AMD 890GX G.Skill Rip Jaws F3-12800CL9D - 2 x 2GB Western Digital Caviar Black - 1 TB
Rs 78,500
7,900 8,800 2,300 4,600 12,000 950 12,500 950 1,700 7,500 5,000 2,800 5,300 6,200 78,500
Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Amp! - 1 GB GDDR5 LG GH22 SATA 22x DVD-writer BENQ G2420 HD - 24-inch TFT Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 Razer Salmosa Altec Expressionist Ultra MX6021 Asus Xonar DX 7.1-channel Cooler Master Elite 430 Cooler Master GX 650W Windows 7 Home Premium
TOTAL
TOTAL
HOME
Processor Motherboard RAM Hard disk Graphics card Optical drive Monitor Keyboard and mouse combo Speakers Sound card PC Case Power supply unit Operating system AMD Athlon X2 260, 3.20 GHz Gigabyte 880GM-USB, AMD 880G 2 GB Zion DDR3-1333 MHz Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA Onboard graphics LG GH22 SATA 22x DVD-writer
Rs 28,190 HTPC
3,300 5,400 1,200 2,100 950 6,600 795 1,895 1,650 4,300 28,190 Processor Motherboard RAM Hard disk Graphics card Optical drive Monitor Keyboard and mouse combo Speakers Sound card PC Case Power supply unit TV tuner card Operating system AMD Athlon ll X4 645, 3.10 GHz Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 2x 2 GB Kingston DDR3-1333 MHz Western Digital Caviar Blue - 1 TB Sapphire Radeon HD 6570, 1 GB Sony BD-5300S, 12x Blu-ray Writer BenQ V2400 Eco, 24-inch TFT (LED) Logitech Wireless Combo MK320 Creative Gigaworks T3 Asus Xonar DX 7.1-channel Silver Stone LC16B MR220 Corsair CMPSU-430CX - 430 Watts Avermedia AverTV Speedy PCIE Windows 7 Home Premium
Rs 94,495
5,100 6,300 2,300 3,000 4,600 11,000 16,900 1,795 15,000 5,000 11,800 2,200 3,300 6,200 94,495
Samsung SyncMaster B2030N - 20-inch TFT Logitech Deluxe 250 Desktop USB Altec Lansing VS2621 Onboard high-definition audio iBall Pride Included with the PC Case - 250 Watts Windows 7 Home Basic
TOTAL
TOTAL
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T EST C E TE S T CEN T ER TEST CE NTE CENTER
LAPTOP CONFIGS
BUDGET
PROCESSOR Intel Pentium P6200, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5 MEMORY 1 GB or 2 GB HARD DRIVE 320 GB or higher DISPLAY 14.1-inch or 15.6-inch GRAPHICS On-board WEIGHT 2.3 Kg to 2.7 Kg OTHER Bluetooth, DVD-writer, Wi-Fi b/g, Webcam PRICE RANGE Rs 22,000 to Rs 35,000
MAINSTREAM
PROCESSOR Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5 MEMORY 2 GB or 3 GB HARD DRIVE 320 GB or higher DISPLAY 14.1-in or 15.6-in GRAPHICS On-board or Discrete WEIGHT 2.3 Kg to 3 Kg OTHER Bluetooth, DVD-writer, Wi-Fi b/g or n, Webcam PRICE RANGE Rs 35,000 To Rs 45,000
NETBOOK
PROCESSOR Intel Atom Single / Dual-core, AMD Fusion MEMORY 1 GB to 2 GB HARD DRIVE 160 GB or higher DISPLAY 10-in or 11.6-in GRAPHICS On-board WEIGHT 1 Kg to 1.5 Kg OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader PRICE RANGE Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000
ACER ASPIRE 5750 Rs 26,367

CPU Intel Core i3-2310, 2.10 GHz; MEMORY 2 GB; HARD DISK 500 GB; DISPLAY 15.6-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 2.5 Kg; OS Linux; OTHER Bluetooth, HDMI, Card reader
SONY VAIO VPCEH16EN/B/W /W Rs 36,990

CPU Intel Core i3-2310M, 2.1 GHz; MEMORY 4 GB; HARD DISK 320 GB; DISPLAY 15.6-in; GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce 410M, 512 MB; WEIGHT 2.35 Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HDMI, eSATA
ACER ASPIRE ONE HAPPY 2 Rs 15,728

CPU Intel Atom N570, 1.66 GHz; MEMORY 1 GB; HARD DISK 320 GB; DISPLAY 10.1 in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 1.3 Kg; OS Windows 7 Starter; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader
LENOVO G470 59-067062 Rs 28,690

CPU Intel Core i3-2310, 2.1 GHz; MEMORY 2 GB; HARD DISK 640 GB; DISPLAY 14-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 2.2 Kg; OS Free-DOS; OTHER Bluetooth, HDMI, Card reader
LENOVO IDEAPAD Z570 59-069601 Rs 37,990

CPU Intel Core i3-2310M, 2.1 GHz; MEMORY 3 GB; HARD DISK 640 GB; DISPLAY 15.6 in; GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce GT 520M, 1 GB; WEIGHT 2.6 Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, HDMI
SAMSUNG N150-JP0GIN Rs 16,500

CPU Intel Atom N550 (dual-core), 1.5 GHz; MEMORY 1 GB; HARD DISK 250 GB; DISPLAY 10.1 in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 1.24 Kg; OS Windows 7 Starter; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader
HP PAVILION G6-1103TU Rs 30,950

CPU Intel Core i3-2310, 2.10 GHz; MEMORY 2 GB; HARD DISK 500 GB; DISPLAY 15.6-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 2.3Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader
ACER ASPIRE 5755G Rs 37,594

CPU Intel Core i3-2310M, 2.10 GHz; MEMORY 4 GB; HARD DISK 640 GB; DISPLAY 15.6 in; GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce GT 540M, 1 GB; WEIGHT 2.5 Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, HDMI
HP MINI 110-3612TU Rs 19,500

CPU Intel Atom N570 (dual-core), 1.66 GHz; MEMORY 2 GB; HARD DISK 320 GB; DISPLAY 10.1-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 1.4 Kg; OS Windows 7 Starter; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader
SAMSUNG RV520-A01IN Rs 34,000

CPU Intel Core i3-2310, 2.10 GHz; MEMORY 3 GB; HARD DISK 640 GB; DISPLAY 15.6-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 2.4 Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, HDMI, Card reader
DELL INSPIRON 15R Rs 42,800

CPU Intel Core i3-2410M, 2.30 GHz; MEMORY 4 GB; HARD DISK 500 GB; DISPLAY 15.6 in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 2.65 Kg; OS Windows 7 Home Basic; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HDMI, USB 3.0
LENOVO S10-3S Rs 20,000

CPU Intel Atom N475, 1.83 GHz; MEMORY 2 GB; HARD DISK 250 GB; DISPLAY 10.1-in; GRAPHICS On-board; WEIGHT 1.3 Kg; OS Windows 7 Starter; OTHER Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Webcam, Card reader
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FEATURED
The Mac Hack

We show you how to install and run OS X Lion on your ordinary PC
BY FRANCIS D'SA, ANAND TULIANI AND JAMSHED AVARI
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Nirmal Biswas
COVER STORY
FEATURED
here are a lot of things that Apple gets right, but pricing is not one of them. This is a company thats made a fortune by defying conventional wisdom, so its hard not to admire it and its products despite their occasional quirks and shortcomings. Apples appeal has grown from a long history of understanding what users are really doing with their computers and devices, and knowing how to create things that people will desire. Its all about the experience their goal is to make you feel delight and wonderment from the time you walk into a shop till you take your new device out of its box and switch it on for the rst time. Everything that Apple does, from
of that Apple experience and use it on your own, outside the connes of the expensive ecosystem built specically for it. The enjoyment wont be the same, but the whole point is to expand users options and give them the choice. Were referring, of course, to running Mac OS X on any ordinary PC, something that the Cupertino giant does not like, endorse or acknowledge in any way. Apples desktop OS is nely tuned to work with its own hardware, software and online services: an entire ecosystem. This has the disadvantage of limiting your choices (and budget range) when it comes to buying a new computer, but it has the advantage of eliminating the
the iron-clad secrecy it maintains around upcoming products to the theatricality of its unveilings, is designed to further that experience. Once the association with joy has been made in buyers minds, theyre hooked. Mac OS X has a lot of appeal: the graphics are rich, security is higher than Windows, its generally easier for beginners to get used to, and theres some excellent software available for creative professionals. For most people though, just the coolness factor and thrill of getting it working without spending money on Apple hardware are reason enough to try. This is the reality distortion eld effect that dozens of other companies have tried to emulate over the years, to varying degrees of success. Just like everyone else, Apple has had to adapt to a changing world, one in which everything is mass produced in China, there are only two or three manufacturers of each kind of high-end component, and it costs too much to try and do things on your own. Today, its possible to take a small chunk
thousands of variables that tend to make Windows machines slow or unstable. Apple has never expressly allowed other brands to sell machines with OS X preinstalled, so youll never nd a Mac bogged down with bloatware added on by third-party manufacturers, and you wont have to go hunting for a printer driver when you need one, because its already built in. Be warned, running OS X is a tricky proposition and its not endorsed by Apple in any way. Youll be contravening their end-user license agreement and will not have access to any help or support from them. You also wont have a Macspecic keyboard, mouse or trackpad, which will make several shortcuts and gestures impossible to use. This process is not recommended for casual users, or anyone who isnt familiar with the internal workings of a PC. You run the risk of erasing your hard drive and losing whatevers on it, so make sure you have backups. Moreover, obtaining a legal copy of Lion, the latest version of OS X, is entirely your responsibility. 89
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COVER STORY
FEATURED
The Hackintosh Process

I
nstalling an operating system on hardware not originally designed for it is a tricky process. Apple is famous for building experiences around tightly integrated hardware and software, so problems are bound to crop up when trying to run OS X on unfamiliar components. It's not impossible to run OS X on commodity PC hardware, but this isn't a project to undertake if you're not 100 percent comfortable with your computer's inner workings. As of now, OS X Lion is a bit more difficult to get running than previous versions, Leopard and Snow Leopard. Methods of running these older versions have existed for years now, and a vibrant developer community online is constantly making new drivers available to extend compatibility with all kinds of hardware. With Lion only recently released, the driver database is understandably small, and it's quite likely that you'll run into compatibility issu4es and other odd problems. The most frustrating issue we faced was with an incompatible USB keyboard, which caused all sorts of input errors! Before beginning any experiment, we must emphasize the importance of backing up everything on your computer. Make a list of all hardware and drivers and search online for known problems. Then, if you're sure you understand all the risks and liabilities, you're ready to proceed.
REQUIREMENTS
Kakewalk: Freely downloadable from www.kakewalk.se, this is a simple yet powerful utility which is nothing but a set of scripts running in the background. Lion installer: The operating system (Mac OSX Lion v10.7) can be downloaded for as little as USD 29.99 (approx Rs 1,400) from the Mac App Store (Mac required). Download this 3.5 GB DMG le. Minimum 8 GB USB stick: This USB stick will be formatted and loaded with the bootloader and the Lion installation les. A Macintosh: A Mac is needed to create the USB
stick with the necessary les for installing Lion on a PC. If you dont own one, you'll have borrow one for at least an hour after the installer is downloaded. You won't be able to download Lion from the Mac App Store if this Mac is already running it.
MultiBeast and KextBeast: These free utilities can be found atwww.tonymacx86.blogspot.com. They are needed to install basic drivers for the PC.
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FEATURED
Once you have downloaded Lion and have all the les ready, you can start the process.
STEP 1
Copy the Lion installation le (InstallESD. dmg) and Kakewalk to the desktop of the Macintosh. Run the Kakewalk utility, and on the main screen, click on Install to a USB stick.
STEP 2
On the next screen, select the location of the Lion DMG le and choose the USB stick as the destination. Make sure you choose the correct destination (the USB stick), or you'll end up installing it to the Mac you're working on. When you're sure, click the Create button.
STEP 3
The Kakewalk utility will do the necessary work in the background. It involves formatting the USB stick, mounting the Lion DMG image, copying the installer les and packages to the USB stick and a lot more. All this is done in the background and may take a while depending on the speed of the pen drive. Your USB stick will also be renamed to Kakewalk.
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STEP 4
After the process is complete, the utility will ask you to start the Kakewalk installation. Click OK to continue and the next screen will ask you to choose your motherboard model number. The exact version is preferable, but a close variant will also do. Make sure you have an Internet connection as Kakewalk will need to download the necessary drivers from its repository. If your motherboard is not listed, you'll have to choose the closest match. Then carefully select your destination as the USB drive (now renamed as Kakewalk). Click on Start Installation. After completion, you can safely eject the USB stick and return the Macintosh to its owner, unscathed.
FEATURED
STEP 5
Now plug the USB stick into your PC and turn it on. Go to the BIOS where a few changes need to be made. Change the boot priority to USB HDD. Next, make sure you make the following changes if you have the options in your BIOS: HPET: Enable (64-bit), ACPI Suspend type: S3 (STR) and Hard drive: AHCI enabled. Save and close the BIOS settings. Restart the PC and boot from the USB stick.
STEP 6
When you boot from the USB stick, you will be greeted by Kakewalk's EFI bootloader. Select the USB stick (Kakewalk) on your screen and press [Enter]. WARNING: The target hard drive will be reformatted and all data on it will be lost. If possible, install Lion on a new, blank hard drive.
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FEATURED
STEP 7
After a long process during which you'll see lines of text characters scrolling continuously, you will land at the Lion installation screen. If you have not reached here, it's possible that a compatibility issue has been discovered. Note the error lines displayed on screen and search the Internet for a specic solution. You should nd specic help on the various forums dedicated to OS X fans. For example, the error DSMOS has arrived means that the video card is not compatible.
STEP 8
Follow the steps shown on screen till you arrive at the screen which asks you to choose the destination disk to install the OS to. At this screen, click on Utilities and then Disk Utility. This will start the partition manager for Mac OS X.
STEP 9
Using Disk Utility, click on your target hard drive in the left pane and then click on Partition on the right pane. From the Volume Scheme, select 1 Partition and in the Options below, select GUID Partition Table. Then in the Volume Information, type a name for the partition, select the format type as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and leave the rest untouched. Finally, click on Apply and proceed to format the drive. Once done, exit Disk Utility and proceed with the installation of the OS. The installation will take around 30 minutes, at the end of which your computer will reboot. Leave the USB stick plugged in, as there is no bootloader yet.
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STEP 10
This time, when the system boots again, choose to boot from the hard drive instead of the USB stick. Once booted, you should be welcomed to the next steps of the installation. Continue with all the necessary details that are asked on the screen.
STEP 11
Once done, you should arrive at the default Lion desktop. Congratulations, your installation has been successful! But you have still got to install the bootloader to your hard drive so that it can boot up on its own.
STEP 12
Locate your USB stick in the OS X Finder and open it. You will nd the application Kakewalkdouble-click and run the utility. Click on the icon that reads Install to Computer.
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STEP 13
This screen will highlight the motherboard model you chose while making the USB stick on the Macintosh. You cannot change anything here, so simply click on Start Installation. After a few minutes, you will be asked to reboot the machine. Now your bootloader is installed on your system and you can safely boot your PC from the hard drive. Mac OS X Lion is ready to go!
STEP 14
Installing drivers is the biggest headache, but you can do it in a few steps. First, using MultiBeast, you can install basic drivers for audio, network, graphics, and system components. Copy the Multibeast utility to your new desktop and run it. Follow the steps till you reach the Installation Type screen. From the drop down list, carefully choose the drivers of your motherboard and graphics card by referring to their respective user manuals. If you are not sure of any of the drivers, simply dont select it, or else you will cause errors known as Kernel panic, and might need to reinstall Lion all over again. When the process is complete, you'll need to reboot the PC.
STEP 15
Additional drivers that are not available through Multibeast can be downloaded and installed separately using the KextBeast utility. The drivers are usually in the form of .KEXT les and need to be inserted into certain folders and their permissions set to a particular level. KextBeast does it for you automatically. All you need to do is copy the KEXT les and the KextBeast utility to the desktop and run the utility. It will automatically search for the drivers on the desktop and install them.
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FEATURED
The Switchers Guide to

1. THE DOCK
Somewhat like your Windows taskbar and Start menu rolled into one, the Dock is where shortcuts to all your favorite applications live. Just like in Windows 7, icons in the Dock might represent programs that are running (indicated by a glowing dock, though this can be turned off) or simply ones that are there for quick access. The right hand side of the dock shows individual program windows that are currently minimized. Youll also nd pinned folders here: Trash, the recycle bin equivalent; Documents, where the les you create are saved by default; and Downloads, a central place for downloaded les, as the name suggests.
2. PROGRAM BEHAVIOR
Heres where things get very different from Windows. Programs can run even when no windows are open. What that means is that a browser or image viewer, for example, doesnt stop running when you close all open web pages or images, but you wont see an empty program window either. You can manually quit each program that isnt required anymore, or let Lion decide when it needs to free up resources. Take a look at the menu bar thats always on the top of your screenthe name of the running program will be visible, even if no windows are open. New in Lion, most programs will open exactly the way you left them when they were last closed, including any open documents, web pages or other work in progress. For privacy or convenience, you can disable this behavior in System Preferences. For reasons unknown, OS X has never allowed windows to be maximized to ll your screen. Instead, the "traffic light" controls in the top left corner let you "zoom" a window till its content ts on screen. New to Lion, a Full Screen mode acts somewhat like maximizing a program, but this doesn't just affect a window's size, it can change its look completely.
3. THE KEYBOARD
Say goodbye to [Ctrl] and [Alt], you now have to learn to deal with [Control], [Cmd] and [Option]. ([Cmd] maps to the [Win] key on most PC keyboards). Use [Cmd]+[C] or [Z] to copy or undo, but youll have to hold down [Option] to select multiple items in a list. If it takes too long to get used to the new keyboard positions, you can remap keys via the Keyboard panel in System Preferences.
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Lion
If youre a long-time Windows user, its easy to feel a little lost in Mac OS X. Here are the first things youll need to know.
6. iOS CARRYOVERS
All the new features that headlined Lions release were in some way inspired by the iPhone and iPad user experience. The rst one youll notice is natural scrolling, exactly the opposite of what were used to. Instead of dragging a scrollbar down, you pull a pages contents up. Text autocorrects itself just like on an iPhone, so beware of the sometimes overenthusiastic substitutions. The entire OS can shut down and resume exactly as you left it, with apps open and documents running. Documents are automatically saved as you work, rendering the Save as command redundant.
4. THE FINDER
Where Windows has Explorer, OS X has the Finder, the only difference being that a lot more is hidden from the user. You cant usually browse through protected parts of the hard drive, and as of Lion, top-level folders and hard drives themselves arent visible by default. This makes things simpler for beginners, who can simply save documents to Documents and nd downloads in Downloads, but it takes time for advanced users to accustomed. Views are also different: iTunes users will recognize Cover Flow, and the multi-column view is handy when digging through deeply nested folders.
5. SPACES AND MISSION CONTROL

OS X Lion takes virtual desktops mainstreamyou can organize your windows across multiple Spaces, just like multiple invisible monitors arranged side to side for visual reference. Switch between Spaces with a two-ngered trackpad swipe, or [Control]+[ ]/[ ]. Mission Control ([F3] or two-ngered double-tap) lets you see a zoomed-out view of all your Spaces and the programs currently running in each. You can force programs to run only within their own Space, and any app in fullscreen mode is counted as its own Space. Bonus: each Space can have its own background wallpaper.
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7. TIME MACHINE AND VERSIONS

Since most people only realize the importance of backups when its too late, Apple has tried to make the process as easy as possible. Time Machine is a one-click solution; set it up and you can pull out backups at any time. With Lion, you can also track revisions to individual les and documents. Click the document name a programs title bar to browse through previous Versions of a document and rescue elements in them that you've since deleted, even if you didnt save different copies as you went along. Lion will save a copy as often as every minute. After two weeks, les are "locked", and you'll be prompted when edits will change the current version of a le.
8. BUILT-IN PROGRAMS
Apart from the well-known iTunes jukebox and Safari web browser, Mac OS X comes with a cool email client and built-in apps for contacts and calendaring. These now look a lot like their iPad counterparts, and are just as capable. If you need to nd some additional software, you can now browse through the Mac App Store and buy or download anything thats available. Every new Mac also comes with iLife, a suite of programs including iPhoto for photo management and basic edits, iMovie, a fun video editing tool, and Garage Band, which pretty much anyone can use to learn and create music.
9. OTHER COOL THINGS

OS X has some of the best accessibility features for disabled users. Check them out via the System Preferences. There are also built-in parental controls, voice commands and encryption options. There are loads of commands to tweak the interface, known as defaults write commands that you can type into the Terminal. Search online for dozens of options, such as changing the look of your dock, or enabling new animations. The Automator is a powerful, but little-known utility for creating scripts to automate repetitive tasks. And Airdrop, in the Finder, is a brilliantly easy way to share les between two Macs via Wi-Fi. Hit [Cmd]+[Space] at any point to bring up Spotlight, the system-wide search tool that nds les, programs, settings, help, and now even dictionary denitions. OS X even has built in spelling, grammar and Wikipedia functionsalmost any selectable text can be looked up.
10. THINGS THAT BEHAVE BADLY

Lion can't run programs written for older, non-Intel CPUs. You shouldnt encounter any such programs today, except in very specialized cases. Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 runs ne, but 2004 wont work at all. Initial users have also reported trouble with several Adobe apps including Flash Player and most of the Creative Suite products. Users with Time Machine backups on external drives might be out of luck due to new requirements that older drives dont yet support. Most of these problems will be xed by updates from the respective vendors, but it's a good idea to search online for potential pitfalls before installing Lion.
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FEATURED
7 Quick Solutions for Software Breakdowns

Crashed, locked, unstablesome programs cause nothing but trouble. It's a good thing that there are analysis and repair tools to quickly ease the situation.
BY MARKUS MANDAU
ou double-click an icon but the program refuses to opendoes this happen to you too often?
responding, use the tool WhatIsHang (www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_is_hang. html). It tells experienced users exactly what went wrong. It analyses whether the problem lies in an interface between system and software, whether the program is caught in a loop or whether, for example, there is a deeper conict such as being incompatible with a 64-bit driver. The tool displays the crashed program in the upper window. When you press [F9], it shows the details below. In the Remarks section, you will see which errors caused the crash. Under String and Modules found in the stack, the tool lists the commands or program libraries involved with the crash. The crash report will tell you if there is a problem with the program itself. In that case, an update or reinstallation is required. At the very least, you will learn what kind of actions to avoid. If a program freezes more often, take a look at AppCrashView (www.nirsoft. net/utils/app_crash_view.html). This tool evaluates Windows error reports and lists all crashes so far. Clicking Process le
will show you which program crashes particularly often on your system. Then turn to ProcessKO (www.softwareok. com/?seite=Software/ProcessKO). It automatically starts in the taskbar and has actually been designed for programmers who test self-written software. It therefore allows the user to set Favorites for crashed processes, so he/she can quickly kill them anytime at the touch of a button. With the help of AppCrashView, you will already know which process should be dened as favorites on your system. Now, rightclicking the program icon is enough to kill the process.
You helplessly sit in front of the PC; the program help is of no use, the FAQ on its website cannot provide an answer, and even a thorough Web search goes in vain. Applications often start behaving oddly for no reason and some are just programmed poorly and can bring down your entire system, causing problems for other software. Our recommended tools provide quick help for complicated problems. They try to determine the cause of a crash and repair it. We have found suitable programs for seven different scenarios. They get to the bottom of the most common software breakdowns and repair them.
Eliminating unstable and slow programs
It is annoying, but not dangerous, if a program gets hung in an innite loop. Things are different though when it causes Windows to crash too or unnecessary slows down the system. An excessive number of programs starting automatically will make Windows take longer to boot. Software you install,
First aid measures for a software crash
All applications are not perfect, and few can manage all their tasks without problems. It is important to know why they break down, so that we can respond appropriately. If a program stops
WhatIsHang Under Remarks you will find out which errors have caused
the crash in this case, the program is stuck in a system call
AntiFreeze The emergency Task Manager stops all running processes

at one
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IObit Uninstaller If Advanced is activated, the tool checks how well the
uninstallation has worked.
Undeluxe With Recover, the recycle bin substitute retrieves already deleted
files in Windows as well
such as iTunes and Adobe Reader, might also force components to load at startup. Startup Booster (www.smartpctools. com/startup_booster) displays these timewasters as soon as you have opened it. You can delete entries for Java, QuickTime, iTunes or Adobe Reader; these only search for updates. Sometimes a program manages to pull the entire system into a black hole. If Windows doesnt crash to its infamous blue screen, it might still refuse to respond, and even the Task Manager might refuse to start. This happens when several programs try to execute intensive operations at the same time with the highest priority. In this case, AntiFreeze (www.resplendence.com/antifreeze) is the last refuge before hitting the reset button. AntiFreeze is a more powerful Task Manager. When you open it using the key combination [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Win] + [Home], it stops all running processes. Select the annoying program and click End process. All other processes resume after you terminate it. AntiFreeze however is of no help when it comes to a crashed driver. The only thing that helps here is a restartand then nding out which driver has caused the problem. BlueScreenView (www. nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view. html) is suitable for this. It analyses crash images created by Windows. After Windows restarts, call up the program, select Dump File at the top and go to All drivers under Options | Lower Pane Mode. You will see all drivers loaded at the time of the crash. Those marked in red have caused the crash; you should update them with more stable versions.
Thorough disposing of program and driver remnants
The tool then deletes all les and registry entries associated with the driver, and even creates a backup copy. If something unexpectedly goes wrong, you can reverse the deletion via Management | Backup copy.
The uninstallation routines of commercial programs often leave behind le remains and abandoned registry entries. Even outdated drivers remain in the system, though nobody needs them anymore. Rather than using the Windows Control Panel, try IObit Uninstaller (www.iobit. com/advanceduninstaller.html). When you set the program to Uninstall | Advanced, the tool rst executes a standard uninstallation routine and then searches for remains in the registry and on the hard disk. If the uninstaller nds any, it removes them. Under Forced Uninstall, you can also manually enter the le path of a program that has not been registered in Windows at all. The only thing cleaner is to use a tool that actually monitors the installation of a program and records everything that is added or changed. Magical UnInstall (www.ashampoo.com) automatically identies when the user is starting a setup routine and logs all changes in the system. The tool later uses this information to remove the program completely. However, Magical UnInstall only works on 32 bit systems. Windows does not take care of drivers that no longer control any new hardware. There is no simple built-in way to remove them, but Driver Sweeper (www.guru3d. com/category/driversweeper) handles this. It lists all detected drivers when the program is started, even those which are no longer related to any hardware at all. If you recognize such leftover ones, just select them and then click on Clean.
Solving problems with anti-malware tools, deleting infected files
Anti-malware programs are a necessary, but slightly fussy, component of a system. They do not tolerate any competing product installed concurrently, use up a great deal of system resources. It is easiest to avoid problems by only installing security products from the same company. However, some components of competitor products are often hidden in the system. You need AppRemover (www. appremover.com) for this. It specializes in tracking down these remains. For this, select the Clean Up a Failed Uninstall option after starting the program. Experienced users might choose not to run antivirus software to avoid system bloat, but as an alternative we have le scanners such as VTzilla (www.virustotal. com) that check suspicious les online installation is not required here. Problems arise if the user is not allowed to delete data thus found, since he/she does not have rights to do so, for example if the virus has attacked system les. You can then repair this with a Windows tool. Call up the command prompt and navigate to the System32 folder. Type sfc /scannow to begin the check. If it is not a system le and you still do not have the right to delete, then start the FilExile tool (lexile.sourceforge.net) and enter
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP 09/2011
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way to rescue such deleted les is by
make sure that you only leave the rst two checkmarks in the Select components window or your desktop will be littered with advertising shortcuts. If Windows reports a blocked le, click Unlocker in the context menu. The tool shows the process that has reserved the le. You can release with Kill process. The Unlocker is not always successful. For example, if a system process uses the blocked le, the only thing that helps is a Windows restart. MoveOnBoot (www.emcosoftware.com/move-onboot) gets integrated in the booting process and does the jobs assigned to it by the user, including moving or deleting blocked les. Dene the details in Boot Action Wizard. The tool cannot move les to another partition, however.
Analyzing breakdowns using Windows tools

Windows logs everything that happens to iteven software breakdowns. Use this information to find out what is wrong USING THE MAINTENANCE CENTER As soon as Windows detects a problem, it creates a report and wants to search for a solution on the Microsoft websitewhich often leads to no results. You can call up the list of problem reports in the taskbar via the Action Center. Under Maintenance, click Display problems to be reported. If you organize the list according to Sources, you will see which programs crash most often. By clicking Display technical details, Windows gives a detailed description of the cause. A good starting point for a solution is the value for the Exception code. Although a corresponding Google search might not take you exactly to exactly what you are looking for, it often provides valuable information. ANALYZING THE EVENT LOG You will find details for less serious problems in the Start menu under Administrative Tools | Event Viewer. Open Windows logs for the category Applications. Windows saves all reports related to the installed softwarethere can be several thousand. If you sort data according to Level, you will get all error messages at a glance. Sorting by Source refines the search by the different causes, for example, Application Error or Hang. If you select an entry, you can check in the main window under General what exactly happened. If you scan the list, you will see whether a program has always failed at the same task or whether there is some other reason for this. In the latter case, it is not compatible with your system and you should uninstall it.
using specialized data recovery software. Such tools work because les removed from the Recycle Bin remain intact on the hard disk till they are overwritten. Until then, they are only marked as deleted in the index of the le system. The free tool Recuva (www.piriform.com/recuva) scans for such entries and retrieves lost les with a simple click on the Scan button. If the deletion happened long ago and Windows has overwritten the entry in the index, go to Settings | Actions and turn on Deep scan. If you have reformatted the drive, activate the option Scan for unerased les. Undeluxe (www.resplendence.com/ undeluxe) is a smart replacement for the Recycle Bin, and makes it more difficult to delete les unintentionally. In the main window, click Start so that the tool catches all deleted les and stores them in a backup folder. Using the Protected File Explorer, you can access these les later and restore them by clicking Recover. However, Undeluxe runs only on normal partitions; it does not work if you have installed a RAID system.
Playing troublesome Multimedia formats, configuring the player
You want to view a movie le by doubleclicking it. Windows Media Player starts, but nothing really happens after that. Thankfully, there are some players that can do more in such situations. Media Player refuses to play downloaded les if theres even a slight error, and even if the download is almost complete. If any part is missing, the index of the movie le has to be rewritten, which can be done by a good editor like VirtualDub, but by hardly any normal player software. UMPlayer (www.umplayer.com) is an exception. In the main window of the tool under Options | Settings | Advanced, put a checkmark in front of Create new index if necessary to play corrupt or incomplete movies. If the sound or subtitles do not run synchronously, you can even correct this under Audio or Subtitles by entering a positive or negative Delay value. With some les, you already know before playing them that the volume is too low or the image needs more sharpness. Normally, one needs to recongure the corresponding player functions every time. If you use VLC Media Player, you can do without this, thanks to an additional tool. VLC Media Launcher lets you save precongured player settings as proles, and start them along with VLC player when needed. These tools and tips should help x most of the common software problems
Releasing files blocked by the operating system
Sometimes, Windows just doesnt let you access certain lesit is impossible to move or delete them. Since XP, Windows File Protection protects DLLs from modications: for example, it is not possible to delete photos that are loaded by the Windows image display. Even ordinary programs that run in the background open exclusive les and block them. When another process accesses such a le, Unlocker (www. emptyloop.com/unlocker) can end it. The free tool is installed in the context menu of Windows Explorer. During installation,
the corresponding path. However, FilExile only deletes complete folders. If you want to remove one specic le, do so from the command line. Navigate to the corresponding folder and enter del /f /q /a lename. This will allow you to delete all les, except for the system les.
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Retrieving files deleted by mistake

MoveOnBoot The Tool unlocks locked files by
moving them during restart of Windows
Many people have regretted emptying the Recycle Bin without thinking. The classic
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WEB WATCH
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Web Watch
Here are some interesting websites you might want to visit.

COMPILED BY PRIYANKA TILVE
COLOURLOVERS.COM
WIKISKY.ORG
GAANA.COM
f youre a Web designer, a visual artist, or a graphic designer, you would know the importance of color all too well.
No matter how brilliant your design or creation is, if you dont use the right colors, the design will fail to impress. On the other hand, choosing the right colors will elevate your design further. To ensure that you get your colors right, you can visit ColourLovers.com. Its
ave you ever wondered about the secrets the universe holds? All we see is the sun, the moon, the stars
and occasionally some planets, but thats just the tip of the iceberg. It doesnt matter if youre a stargazer or not, you cant help but be fascinated with WikiSky.org. Though the site is aimed at educating children, even an adult can explore the universe and have fun while doing so. The site brings to you the most realistic high resolution images of the night sky, stars, comets, galaxies and nebula. The site has integrated Sky-Map with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Astrophysics Data System (ADS). The SDSS that has been in operation for over eight years offers deep, multi-color images covering more than a quarter of the sky. It provides 3D maps that contain more than 930,000 galaxies and 120,000 quasars. When you select the SDSS view, it will show you high resolution sky survey image of the area that you are browsing. If you want to know about a particular object that you see, all you have to do is place the cursor on it and an information box will pop up on your screen. There is also a photo gallery with real images of the sky. Even here, you can point the cursor on a particular object and the related information will be displayed on the screen. Another option for exploring the sky is by clicking on the Collection tab, which is further divided into galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, quasars, etc. Whats more, by paying a small amount, you can also have a star named after you!
hile there are many sites on the Web that allow you to stream music, the one thats creating
quite a buzz these days is Gaana.com, and not without reason. After all, it
comes from the stable of Indias biggest media organization the Times Group. Considering the number of channels, record labels, radio channels under the groups umbrella, Gaana.com has a denite edge. And to create the initial buzz, the site started off as invite-only, which further added to the curiosity. The site is now open for all and you can sign-in using your Facebook or Twitter account or create a new login altogether. Once you sign up, you will be able to access music across genres from the latest Bollywood hit and yesteryears melodies to regional music and international chartbusters. The interface is quite simple to navigate. The menu is divided into new releases, most popular, playlists, genres, artists, albums, people and now playing. You can browse by song, playlist, album, genre or artist. The site also features playlists such as Mirchi Top 20 (the 20 popular songs playing on Radio Mirchi), US Top 20, Indi Pop, and Su music. You can click the check box next to the song to add it to playlist or queue it. Another way to do it is by simply right-clicking on the song and then adding it to the playlists from there. The site also allows you to choose a theme, share music via Facebook or Twitter, and even recommends songs based on your tastes. There also an HTML 5 version of the site that is compatible with devices like the iPad.
one of the best sites aimed at helping professionals and enthusiasts make the correct color decisions. With the help of its ColorSchemer tool, you can create color schemes for Web (RGB) or print (CMYK) format. You can browse through the existing color schemes, select the one you like and even tweak it to suit your needs. You can create schemes and then share them with the community. You can also apply these color schemes to various patterns or create your own. To make things easier, there are channels business, craft, fashion, home, print, web, and wedding. Here, you can select the channel of your choice and then go on to explore the latest color trends, palettes, designs, patterns, etc. You can also join the forums, seek advice or receive inputs from like-minded people. The site also features the current color trends, be it in branding, magazines, online, street fashion, interiors and wedding cards. With Themeleon, you can create your own themes or select and customize the ones you like. You can then apply this theme to customize your Twitter prole. The blog covers interesting topics, trends, new products, and other fun ideas.
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THE LURE OF EASY MONEY IS TOO TEMPTING, SO PEOPLE FALL FOR SUCH SCAMS.
PRIYANKA TILVE, SENIOR FEATURES WRITER
NAAPTOL CLUB
here seems to be no end to the launch of deal and e-commerce sites. Almost every month, a new site is
ONLINE FRAUD
A
s the old adage goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and so if someone writes you an email saying they want to offer you part of their million dollar inheritance for a little help from you, then you have every reason to be suspicious. When such emails are sent out, youre asked to part with your bank account details for seemingly official purposes, and at times, some money may even be transferred into your account with a promise of more to follow. While this will put you at ease and thank your lucky stars for this good fortune, it will be a while before you realize that your bank account has been swept clean of all your savings. Popularly known as the Nigerian scam, it was quite widespread a few years ago, with victims including people from all walks of life. Over the years, we have witnessed many such Internet scams, and for a while, it looked like the tide had subsided, but it has just reared its ugly head again in a newer form. Recently, there was uproar over Speak Asia, an online survey fi rm that promised high returns. When I initially saw the ads in leading print and electronic media, even I was intrigued. I visited their site to fi nd out more and balked when I read that I was expected to invest Rs 11,000 when signing up, after which I would be paid Rs 1,000 for every two online surveys. And of course, I was encouraged to sign up my friends so that I can earn an additional bonus. Being paid Rs 1,000 for participating in online surveys is unheard of, and its even more bizarre that I was expected to invest in the fi rm that conducts the surveys. But apparently, lakhs of people fell for the scam and now that the lid has been blown off the scam, theyre crying foul. It worked as multi-level marketing (MLM), which is a method of marketing, where you have to recruit people under you. Not only will you be compensated through the revenue generated by them, but also for the revenue generated by their recruits. So its kind of a chain; the more people you recruit, the higher your profits. Sometimes, these companies have you sell products that are dubious in nature; gimmicks designed to make a quick buck. You have to pay a certain amount to enter the chain and then you are reimbursed as the chain grows. Its more like money being transferred from one pocket to another. Its best not to fall for these scams, as you may earn some money initially, but you may end up burning your fi ngers in the long run. Before investing money, its always advisable to do some research about the company and its track record. You will often fi nd people airing their experiences at online forums. These can be positive or negative. Read them carefully and then decide if you are willing to take the risk.
- [email protected]
being launched. The next to jump onto the bandwagon is Naaptol.com, which has emerged as one of Indias leading
e-commerce shopping platforms. The Naaptol Club can be accessed via a link on the main site. Naaptol Club is not an everyday coupon-based deal site, but more of a private sale site. It offers discounts as high as 80% on the leading luxury and fashion sites. It boasts of a wide range of fashion apparel, accessories and home decor products from top brands on private sale. The sales are by invite, and once you get an invitation, you can go about inviting your friends. If your friend joins and makes a purchase, you will get an additional discount. Every sale on the site lasts up to ve days with a new sale going live almost every morning. It features almost all the major national and international brands across a wide variety of categories, from apparel and fashion accessories to health and beauty products to gadgets. The brands currently featured on the site include the likes of Dunhill, Hugo Boss, Carrera, Fcuk, Diesel, Levis, Nike, Casio, Reebok, and many more. Once you have placed an order, their promised delivery time ranges between 7-14 days. The payment options include internet banking, credit/debit cards as well as cash on delivery. At this stage, there arent many sales on the site, but looking at the percentage of discount offered, this is one site to watch out for.
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Dr CHIP
Sachin Pandit
SenD your querieS to: [email protected]
[Q] Hello Dr CHIP. I have a Creative

Vado which can record videos at a resolution of 640x480 and has 2 GB storage. Can I increase the internal memory in any way? Can I upgrade the firmware and gain full high definition video recording? Also there is a red LED light at the back of the video recorder which comes on when I am recording. I want to switch that LED off, but there are no settings for doing so. Can you help me with this? Can I use the Vado as a media player? Can I store a movie on it and watch it later? Finally, if all these issues cannot be solved, what can I use the video recorder for which has a very small memory storage? I seem to have made a bad decision by buying one of these products. Kindly give me some advice. Thanks. Abhinav
at 640x480. There are no firmware upgrades or settings that can increase this resolution. Also the internal storage memory is limited to 2 GB and there are no expansion slots that can help increase this storage space. The red LED on the rear panel near the lens is provided for two reasonsfirstly to know that the camera is in record mode, and secondly, to prevent you from shooting videos of another person without he/ she knowing about it. The red LED is an indication to the opposite person that you are recording a video. Invading another persons privacy without their consent is against the law and can land you in trouble. But if you intend using it for personal reasons at home only, you can get rid of the red light. There are no settings on the device to switch off the light, but there are two solutions for this. A temporary solution is to cover the red LED with some black tape. The permanent solution is to physically remove the LED itself. To do this, remove the battery cover and the battery, and then carefully pop out the transparent plastic cover of the lens using a flat screwdriver or a blunt knife. This cover is glued on to the shell using rubber glue and can be replaced back without any effort. Once opened, locate the red LED and cover it with a small piece of black sticky tape. If you wish you can also de-solder the LED using a soldering iron. But de-soldering the LED can also cause damage to the surrounding
the lens, remount the battery and check the camera. Do this at your own risk and remember that recording videos of another person without their consent is a crime. Since the internal storage is only restricted to 2 GB, you can make use of this camera to take instant short videos of memorable events that take place in your life when you are out with family or friends. Alternatively you can place it on your car windscreen and record your journey around the city to make time-lapse videos or use it for security purposes such as proof of an accident or such. Finally, you can also mount it on the main door of your house or office and use it as a security camera. Lastly, you cannot transfer any videos to the device and use it as a portable media player. The codec might be similar, but the device will not recognize the files as it is not shot by the internal camera.
[A] Hello Abhinav. The Creative

Vado cannot record high definition videos, but only standard definition
[Q] Hi Dr CHIP, I am a great fan of

yours. I started reading your column since I was 12 and I must tell you have been doing a great job. I bought this laptop, the HP Pavilion DV5-1203AX in February 2009 and it has been working awesome till now. The problem i face almost every day is that my laptop crashes every now and then. Earlier I thought it to be an operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate) issue and I formatted my hard disk and re-installed the operating system. But still the issue exists as before. I couldnt find anything, from the system/application log files. After
intelligent computing chip 09/2011
The red LED light indicates to the subject that you are currently recording a video.
components if you are not careful. Once done, replace the transparent plastic on
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the system crashes, many times the operating system throws up the blue screen, but most of the times it freezes. But the problem does not show up when I boot into the Safe Mode. I have been using Kaspersky 2011 installed and it is always updated. Hence I ruled out the virus infection possibility as well. I have also noticed that when the operating system crashes, the hard disk LED light goes off, which may mean that after crash the operating system stops accessing the HDD or my operating system is crashing due to the HDD itself. Please help me out here as it has become very frustrating. Thanks in advance. Priyam
engineer or service center. If all goes well with the driver installation and without any crashes, then start by installing the necessary software that you need. Do the same by installing one at a time and checking in between. I am sure that you will find the culprit software or hardware that is causing the crash.
which comprises of the following configuration: Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB of hard drive, 19-inch LCD monitor, Windows 7 operating system and Microsoft Office 2007. I have an issue as most of the time the office IT guys keep changing and implementing some setting or hardware every week and most times my PC crashes because of the changes. Due to these reasons, I keep losing my system settings, data and emails. As data can be backed up by simply copying and pasting the files on an external drive, they can be restored with minimal effort. But this does not seem to be the case with my emails. I am using Microsoft Outlook and every time the machine is re-formatted, I have to lose out on emails and have to keep setting up the email accounts and rules. My query is related to Outlook and I wish to know if there is any method to keep my emails safe and are they any possibilities of saving the account and rule settings so that I can restore it whenever there is a similar problem. I am presently using seven email accounts and configuring the settings and implementing rules
[Q] Hello Sir. I am a new reader of

CHIP magazine and I came to know that you helped people in their PC related queries and problems. I have a DELL Inspiron 535 desktop (it has a slim-line cabinet). I had a problem with the DVD optical drive. One day I had burned a data DVD and thereafter I checked it. Till date, there was no problem with the writer. But after that whenever I insert another disk, the drive was not able to read any CD or DVD. It also creates an annoying sound while trying to read the discs. So what is the problem here and can you please help me out of it? Thanks in advance. Ankush Mohit
Faulty hardware can cause the OS to crash. Note if the PC crashes after a particular driver installation.
almost once a week is getting to my nerves. I hope you understand what I am going through and would like you to help me with a solution. Thanks a million in advance. Ady
[A] Hi Priyam. Since you state that

your machine simply crashes with blue screen errors whenever it wants and runs perfectly in safe mode, it clearly states that you either have a virus issue or a problem with a particular driver or software. At this stage it will be quite difficult to find out which application is responsible for that error. I would suggest that you take a complete data backup and format the hard drive once. Next only install the Windows operating system and check if the machine crashes. Next install the necessary drivers for the hardware one by one and carefully checking if the machine crashes after each installation. Make sure these drivers are updated and virus-free. If the machine crashes anywhere in between you can pin-point the driver that might be causing the problem. A faulty hardware could also be responsible for crashing. Do take note when the machine crashes after a particular driver installation. You might need to inform this discovery to the respective service
Clean the lens using a lens cleaner disc or a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol.
[A] Hello Ankush. As you stated that

after you successfully burned the disc you are now not able to read any other discs, there could be a problem with the DVD drive itself. Either the lens is dead or misaligned. In both cases you would need to replace/repair the DVD drive. I also suggest you try cleaning the lens with a lens cleaner disc or use a cotton earbud/ swab dipped in a little isopropyl alcohol to clean the lens physically. Make sure you dont apply too much pressure on the lens as it might damage the lens or further misalign the lens assembly.
In Outlook, under Tools | Account Settings | Data Files, got to Personal Folders to find the PST file.
[A] Hello Ady. I understand what you

mean and I am also going through a similar crisis at my work place. But the scenario is different here as I have to reformat my computer almost once a month due to several reasons such as software and hardware testing which slow down the computer. I will be most
[Q] Hello Dr CHIP. I have a small

query which I need you to help me with. I use a desktop PC at office
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happy share the solution that I am presently using on my PC with you. Firstly, I take a backup of my emails everyday without fail. Since Microsoft uses a single .PST file to store all emails, calendar and contacts, it is easier than its older sibling Microsoft Outlook Express where these important data files are separate and each one has to be backed up separately. In order to safely store the .PST file in a different location, I make a copy of the file using an automated batch file. A shortcut to this batch file is made in the startup folder which automatically copies the file to a particular location on another partition or hard drive. The batch file contains a simple copy command which copies the outlook.pst file from C:\Users\<my username>\AppData\ Local\Microsoft\Outlook to another location on the D drive. To find where Outlook stores the .PST file on your machine, start Outlook, click on Tools > Account Settings, then click on the Data Files tab and then double-click on the Personal Folders line on the bottom window. This will open the properties for the Outlook data file and the location of the file will be available in the Filename section. So next time you have to reinstall Outlook, all you need to do is import the data from the backed up .PST file or simply replace the .PST file with the backup one. Secondly I backup the rules from Outlook onto a file and store it away safely. This needs to be done only when you make changes or add/remove any rule. To backup rules, start Ms Outlook and click on Tools and then on Rules and Alerts. Then in the respective window click on Options and then on Export rules and save the file to a desired location on your hard drive. This file contains all the information about the rules and all you need to do is import it whenever you reconfigure Outlook. Finally, to save the email account settings you need to head to the registry. Click on Start type in Regedit and press enter. The registry editor will open up and here scroll down to HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook. Right-click on the Outlook key and select Export. This command will then create a .REG file at the desired location.
Save this file as it contains all the email accounts that need to be configured. To implement this file into Outlook, all you need to do is right-click on the .REG file and select Merge. Make sure Outlook is not running when you are merging the registry file. Once done, start Outlook and all your email accounts will be configured. Note: For security purposes, one cannot save passwords using this procedure. You will need to put in the passwords for your email accounts.
this problem and are more efficient than Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh batteries. If your laptop is older, then you should have the battery inspected and replaced. If your laptop is under warranty, have the laptop taken to the service center and get it replaced under warranty.
[Q] Hello Dr CHIP. I have an HTC

Desire Bravo mobile phone and am pretty much a novice relating when it comes to installing third-party ROMs and stuff. Presently I am following the XDA forums and there seem to be a lot of ROMs available out there. My query is relating to backup and restore of ROMs. For instance, If I am using ROM A and want to try out ROM B, I usually take a backup of ROM A using the ClockWorkMod Recovery utility and then install ROM B. If I am not too happy with ROM B, I simply wipe the handset and restore ROM A back again. Quite a few times, I have come across a few ROMs which are nice and cool and I would like to save them using the backup function and restore them to use them when I like. But I have noticed that when I backup using CWM Recovery utility, it just makes a backup with the date and time and I
[Q] Hello CHIP. I am using an HCL

laptop. When I connect the power charger / adapter to charge the laptop, the LED light on the charger keeps blinking but the laptop does not charged. I am too bored without using my laptop. Please help me and thanks in advance. Sooraj
Most batteries have a life span of 1.5 2 years. LiIon batteries are now the most used in laptops.
have no option to rename this backup. In the process, I do not know which backup is from which ROM. Now I have four backup ROMs and I dont remember which one is from which ROM. It is confusing and I have to restore each one to find out which ROM it is. I know I should write down or remember the dates or the backup, but it is kind of tedious. Is there any other way I can do the needful to make things a little easier? Kindly help me out. Thanks in advance. Raja
[A] Hi Sooraj. You have not specified

the age of the laptop. All laptops have a battery and each battery has a life. Usually, batteries have a life span of around 1.5 2 years. In some cases, I have witnessed batteries dying in barely 8 months while in some cases, there are batteries that are still functional for 5 years. Older laptop manufacturers used Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh type of batteries which have a specific method of charging. You need to charge them only when they are fully discharged or have 5 % battery power remaining. Also you need to disconnect the charger when the battery is 100 % charged. Batteries of these types gradually lose their maximum energy capacity if they are repeatedly recharged after being only partially discharged. This procedure of recharging makes the battery store lesser charge and finally fail. This effect is called Memory Effect of the battery. Newer laptops and gadgets are now using Ni-Ion batteries which do not have
In ROM Manager, select the backup and press the menu button and choose to rename the backup.
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machine and installed a fresh copy of Windows all over again, but now it still shows the same message. The another query is that at the time when hard disk is detected Windows gets loaded properly, but after few seconds Windows shows a blue screen where a message Physical memory dump shows on the screen and after that the machine restarts automatically. I took off the system RAM and remounted it
Amon Ra is pretty simple to use and has a few powerful features too.
again. But every time the PC shows the same message again. Please give me some suggestions. Thank you. Subhrajit Mazumder
If the motherboard has an integrated GPU, connect the monitor to it and see if it functions normally.
[A] Hello Raja. Since you are using

CWM (ClockWorkMod) Recovery utility, it is true that the each of the backups (also known as Nandroid backups) are not presently named and it gets tedious and sometimes confusing when there are plenty of backups made. In order to make it simpler, you can download ROM Manager (Free) from the Android Market and use it to rename the backups as per your wish. Start ROM Manager, scroll down to Manage and Restore backups and you shall find the number of backups you already have there. Select the backup and press the menu button and choose to rename the backup. You can do this to all your backups. As an alternative, you can also replace the CWM Recovery utility with the latest Amon Ra Recovery utility which has the facility of automatically renaming the backups with the respective ROM names. Download the free utility from the XDA forums and flash it using Android Flasher. Amon Ra is pretty simple to use and has a few powerful features too. Try it out and I am sure you wont regret it. As for ClockWorkMod Recovery utilities, the original developer and other developers are continuously working on it to make it more powerful and easier and are trying to implement more features in it. Presently, there are some versions that can name the nandroid backups automatically, while some are also available with themes. Check the XDA forums for more updates.
8400 GS graphics card, Windows 7 operating system and a 256 kbps internet bandwidth. My problem is that last week when I was surfing on the internet, suddenly my PC froze up and restarted on its own. Then at the time of booting, the Intel boot screen logos appeared and the display just went blank and was displaying no signal. I tried as many things that I could do but the problem is still the same. I tried all these following options myself: I unplugged the hard
Damaged, dusty or dirty power and data cables can cause problems due to connectivity issues.
drive cables and plugged them back in, I tried removing the Video card and its power cable and re-inserted it again, reset the CMOS/BIOS settings, removed the CMOS battery and after some time inserted it back again and finally removed the memory (RAM) sticks and mounted it again. These were the only things that I could do at that crucial time. So I hope u help me out with this problem. Thank You. Kyle
[A] Hello Subhrajit. Your hard drive

seems to be failing and you might need to replace it as soon as possible. If it is under warranty, get it replaced. But before you do so, I would advice that you take a backup and try the hard drive on another machine to make sure that the drive is working properly and it is not your motherboard or your power supply unit acting up. A loose connection on the power and/or data connectors can also be the cause. Dirty sockets of the power and data cables can also cause problems. The motherboard could also be faulty and the power supply can be weak. On the other side, the hard drive could be having bad sectors which are causing the blue screens. you should definitely check your machine with another hard drive to finally find out which of the components might be the reason for the failures.
[A] Hello Kyle. The issue with your

PC is either with the power supply, the motherboard, the system memory modules or the video card. But since you state that the Intel Logo shows up in the start, it clearly states the problem with either the motherboard or the video card. Try removing the video card and replace it with a known working one to check if your PC works properly. If your motherboard has an onboard integrated graphics card, connect the monitor to the motherboard and check if the PC is functioning normally. Also try using your video card on another PC. There could also be a possibility of your monitor being faulty. Try it on another PC to confirm. Send your queries to Francis DSa at [email protected]
[Q] Hi Dr CHIP. I have two problems

in which I need a little help from you. My hard disk is not working properly. When I turn on the machine, sometimes it detects the hard disk but most of the time it is not and shows a message Reboot and select the proper boot device. I formatted the
[Q] Dear Dr CHIP. I am a great fan

of your magazine and I have been reading CHIP since I was 12. One of my favorite articles is DR CHIP. My system specifications are as follows: Intel DG31PR motherboard, XFX GeForce
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Old Laptop: Second Monitor

If you have an old laptop lying around that doesnt work properly or is too slow, why not turn it into an extended display for your computer?
By FRANCIS D'SA
Jagdish Limbachiya
when you have to keep multiple windows open for reference. For instance, if you need to compare some data across two or more websites, or if you need to refer to one document and complete another. Continuously pressing the [Alt] + [Tab] to switch between the two windows can be painstakingly frustrating and slows down your productivity to quite an extent. Having two or more monitors helps in viewing multiple windows at full screen rather than stacking, cascading or viewing them side-by-side. But investing in an additional monitor can set you back by over Rs 5,000. Additionally, you would need a graphics card with two video headers to support that extra monitor. Most people who have older laptops lying around dont know what to do with them. In the past, we have shown you how you can convert an older, working laptop into a panel PC or an additional TV for your home. This time, we shall show you how you can use this old laptop as a second display
aving an additional display screen or an extended desktop can be very beneficial, especially
for your existing desktop PC or laptop. Ripping off a laptops LCD display screen and converting it into a monitor is next to impossible because it employs a lot of cabling, soldering and converting digital signals into analog for input support. While these convertor kits are rarely available, one would also have to take the trouble of designing the cabinet for the LCD screen. In this workshop, we will not do any sort of hacking or soldering. We shall use the laptop as it is, provided it is in working condition. All one needs here is a simple software utility and a network cable. Lets begin! Start with your laptop first. The laptop will now be referred to as the secondary PC, while your existing desktop PC or laptop which needs the extended monitor will be referred to as the primary PC. If needed, format the laptop (secondary PC) and install a fresh copy of Windows. Windows XP, Vista or 7 in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are compatible. Set up the drivers for the laptop, especially the network and display, without which this workshop will not succeed. Once
done, all you need to do is set up the network between the secondary PC and the primary PC. The network can be configured in either infrastructure mode or peer-to-peer mode. If you intend to use wireless networking, you can use the ad-hoc mode too. We suggest you use wired networking to get maximum performance. Once the networking is done, it is time to install the utility software. Go to www.maxivista.com and download the free demo/trial software. This download will be a self extracting
Download and install the MaxiVista server on the primary PC and the viewer on the secondary PC.
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archive that contains two utilitiesone each for the primary and secondary PC. First run the primary PC setup utility on the primary PC. The computer screen will flicker while setting up the utility and install a few video drivers on it. Make sure you allow the software to make the necessary changes. Once the installation is complete, you will be asked to restart the PC; go ahead. Now, while the primary PC is restarting, you can install the secondary PC setup utility on the secondary laptop. The procedure is similar and no additional user inputs are required. Once both the computers are ready with the utilities installed, all you need to do is double click on the respective Maxivista icons on the desktop and start the utility. It has no user interface; it just starts up as a service and an icon will be available in the system tray. Absolutely nothing needs to be done on the secondary PC except for starting the utility (it also starts as a system service, so you dont even need to do anything). Note: If you have any firewall or antivirus application installed on your PCs, you must set them to allow Maxivista to function using the network. Now on the primary PC, double-click on the Maxivista icons in the system tray and your display will start to flicker a few times. The system theme will also change from default to basic. Have a look at your laptop; Maxivista will automatically startup and will be ready for use as an extended display for your primary PC. degrees, performance tweaks, hotkeys, network settings, gamma settings and performance optimization for network. The free demo/trial utility has limited functions and can be used 50 times or for 14 days. The full version supports the use of additional PCs to integrate more laptops on the network and create a multi-monitor setup. So go ahead and check out this utility and if you like it and think it would benefit your work, you can download the full version for $40 (approx Rs 2,000). The full version supports remote control, display mirroring/cloning, and also functions as a KVM switch. An iPad can also be used as an additional monitor for your existing PC. We are currently using a dual-monitor setup on our work desk and have used a laptop as the third display, which helps us stay updated with news, chat, RSS feeds and email without having to switch between windows. So what are you waiting for? Dig out that old laptop and set it up on your desktop. Old is always gold. Note: Maxivista has a few limitations. Aero display mode, video/TV playback
Depending on the secondary PC's configuration, tweak the display settings for better performance.
HANDS ON
and hardware graphics acceleration are not supported on the extended display. Also, the utility will not work if the primary PC has Windows 7 Starter edition installed.
[email protected]
Fine-tuning
To tweak your displays, right-click on the Maxivista icon in the system tray and do the necessary changes according to your preference. Click on Monitor arrangement to finalize where you have placed your laptop (to the left or right of your primary monitor). Set the display color modes to 16-bit if your laptop is slower. You can also place the laptop according to your orientation (landscape or portrait mode). Resolutions of the extended display can also be set, but you might get a window rather than a full screen. We suggest you leave it to the default settings, unless required. The Options in Maxivista can give you further tweaks such as display modes, rotation of display by 180
Options such as display settings, gamma corrections, network optimization and display performance are available to help tweak the MaxiVista software to get the best performance for your dual monitor setup.
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Google Chromium OS on Your Notebook

Many of us have come to assume that Chromium OS is only available to those using Google's Chromebooks. We show you how you can get it on your notebook.
By ROSSi FeRnandeS
assume that the operating system is only available to those using Googles Chromebooks. Samsung and Acer are the two brands selling Chromebooks in international markets. So what do you do in such cases, where an operating system thats deemed to be free isnt really available on Googles site? Well, you download it from a third party developers page. In this guide, well show you how to download and install a Chromium OS build on a USB
oogles Chrome OS has been in the limelight for a while now, but many of us have come to
drive. Its quite simple really, and it doesnt take more than five minutes once you have the 240-odd MB image downloaded. Heres what youll need to get Chromium OS running. XX The Chrome OS image. In this case, we shall use the Hexxehs Chromium OS build. You can download it from http://chromeos.hexxeh.net XX A USB flash drive. We recommend using a 4 GB flash drive, at least. XX A utility called Windows Image Writer, which can be downloaded from https://launchpad.net/win32image-writer Hexxeh is the developer behind the Hexxeh Chromium builds. The site contains a bunch of builds and the Flow build, though stable, is a little outdated. The newer builds can be found at http://chromeos. hexxeh.net/vanilla. php. Remember that the Chromium builds arent official stable builds, so
there are bound to be some issues and glitches that youll notice while using it. They might even offer better compatibility with your hardware. Find the build you need and download it. The download size of the archives is likely to be between 240 and 327 MB. The downloadable images are available as TAR or GZ files, which can be extracted using a compression tool such as 7zip or Winrar. The file within the archive should be an IMG file. Extract it to your desktop. Now, we have to dump this IMG file on a USB flash drive. Before you write the Chromium OS image to the flash drive, ensure that you have saved all the data from it securely. Next, start the Windows Image Writer utility and select the drive letter for the flash drive. Choose the IMG file you extracted and click on the Write button. This process should take a few minutes. Chromium OS will then be installed on your flash drive. Next, boot your notebook or desktop PC using the flash drive. Ensure that you have enabled USB booting from the BIOS. Plug in the USB flash drive on your PC and power it on. The flash drive should automatically boot into Chromium OS. Once booted, simply login using your Google account and you should be able to install Web apps available on the Chrome store and use your own notebook as if it were a Chromebook.
[email protected]
Choose the download version for the Chromium OS and use the Win32 disk imager utility to create the bootable USB pen drive.
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Splash Your HTC Desire

By FRANCIS D'SA
Arent you bored with your HTC Desires stock splash screen that just says HTC in big, bold letters? Here's how you can use one of your own images there.
splash image is the first image that you see on your HTC Desires screen the moment you turn
Create your image, photo or picture, set the resolution as 480 x 800 (the actual screen size of the HTC Desires display) and save it as a 24-bit BMP (Bitmap) file. Note: No other resolution will work here, so make sure you stick to these specifications. Alternatively, you can download a few readymade images created by HTC Desire users and shared
on the forum at http://t.in.com/aeFI. Alternatively, you can download images from http://t.in.com/deCw listed on the http://ppckitchen.org/ website. Once you have downloaded the image, save it to the desktop. Now that you are ready with your image, all you need is a method to upload the file, and Android Flasher is the easiest and best utility to do so. Download Android Flasher version 1.8.0 from http://t.in.com/1eD2. It is a self-executing utility and does not need any installation. Make sure you have the HTC Desire powered on with the Android OS running and USB Debugging enabled from the settings, and plug it to the PCs USB port. Start the Android Flasher utility. Now, check the Splash box on the Android Flasher utility and click on the Begin icon. The next window will ask
it on. This image can be modified with custom images, either downloaded from the Internet or custom-made. The only requirement here is a simple image editor, such as MS Paint or GIMP, and a utility to upload the image to the phone.
The Android Flasher utility can help flash boot animations, splash images, HBOOT files, recovery utilities and radio updates in a single click.
you to select the BMP file for the image. Select the splash file you prepared and saved earlier on the desktop and click the Open window. Once done, the utility will popup the image in a window to ask you to confirm the splash image. Confirm and click Yes and the utility will start the flashing process. Your phone will reboot automatically and the new splash image will be seen on the screen. A unique splash image idea would be to insert your own photo with your personal details of your phone number and address. This way you can highlight your personal details in case your phone is lost or stolen. This workshop works
Select the 'Splash' check box and when prompted, choose the image you designed. Verify the image in the window and continue flashing the image to your phone.
with HTC phones (not all models) only. There are procedures and methods to replace the splash images on other Android phone brands, but the task is quite complicated.
[email protected]
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Tips & Tricks

SEPTEMBER 2011
Share your tipS. Write to: [email protected]
Sachin Pandit
WINDOWS
If you want to delete an entry from the Favorites, right click the entry and select the Remove context command.
scripts, ensure that you always use the right path for calling up the tool and run the script with administrator rights. The most important commands are mpcmdrun signatureupdate for updating the signature lists and mpcmdrun scan 1 for a quick system check or mpcmdrun scan 2 for a complete check. You can get information about additional options, especially about work logs, from the command line with mpcmdrun ?.
Windows 7
Add your own Favorites to Windows Explorer
Windows Vista, 7
Start the anti-malware tool Windows Defender directly
In the left pane of the Explorer, Windows displays various shortcuts for quick access such as Desktop, Downloads and Last Visited. But these folders arent the only ones you need quick access to.
You sometimes use Windows Defender for detecting malware. In order to automate this process, you want to be able to start the required checks with a script.
Windows XP, Vista, 7

Show preview images in Explorer as attractive film strips
You use the integrated image preview of Windows Explorer and ask yourself how you can improve the display. Simple built-in Windows tools can help you create individual frames to
Simply drag and drop any folder's icon to create a shortcut in the Favorites list.
the image preview in Explorer. You can

This is the file you'll need to run via a command prompt window.
thus equip the icons with film strips for instance. You can find the setting for this in the registry. Enter regedit in the search field of the start menu and press [Enter]. In case of XP, go to Run and then enter regedit. Now navigate to the HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image key. Here, ensure that the spellings are accurate. Then in the right side of the window, double click the DWORD value
Open Windows Explorer with [Win]+[E] and navigate to the folder that you want to add to Favorites. Then click to the folder icon and keep the left mouse button pressed. Drag the icon into the navigation pane over the position in the Favorites area where you want to drop it before releasing the button. Done! The folder is added to Favorites. Windows Defender can be directly run using the command like mpcmdrun.exe. Here, you can give the relevant parameter for several tasks. The tool is located in the Program Files\Windows Defender folder on the system. Administrator rights are required for using the tool. Therefore in case of
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Wildcards such as * are unnecessary since Windows lists all results containing the search term. If you are unable to see any of the specified options, move the cursor to the left border of the input field, click, keep the mouse button pressed and drag and increase the size of the field. Click Save Search in order to save the search request that you have just defined for reusing. You can find the command in
alphabets with dir because they might become different from the normal assignments in Windows. Then copy the existing profile data to the new location via robocopy. The options you will need might include /mir for a complete transfer of the directory structure, / sec for copying the security information and then /xj for excluding the existing junctions. Since it is not very practical to move one single user profile and to leave the rest of them on the system disk, use the action for the entire folder c:\users. The command should then be robocopy
If you like this effect, a simple registry tweak will apply it to all image thumbnails.
the toolbar right below the address field. In the next dialog box, name the search and Save it. Windows manages your search requests with the .search.ms file extension under your profile in the Searches folder. In order to repeat the search, just double click the entry of this saved file in Windows Explorer.
Treatment for editing. If it is not present, create it with the command Edit | New | DWORD Value. Now enter the value 3 and confirm with OK. Every image now gets a border that looks like a film strip. The border can be completely disabled using the value 0 but even the narrow borders resulting from the values 1 and 2 are hardly visible and thus unsuitable. Close the registry and restart Windows Explorer. Individual images now have perforated borders in the Tiles and Thumbnails views, just like classic film strips.
c:\users d:\Newusers /mir /sec / xj if you want to save the profiles under
d:\Newusers for instance. Here, you must delete the original folders completely with the command
rd c:\users /s /q. Then create the
Windows Vista, 7
Move user profiles to another disk for security
required junction in the file system with
mklink c:\users d:\Benutzer /j.

Then close the command window and cancel the Windows setup. Windows can now start normally and uses the profiles from the new location.
For proper segregation of system and data, you want to move a user profile from the boot drive to another hard disk. Windows however does not think
Note: The new path must be available

at all times. If you need to restore the system for instance, the action cannot be undone. In order to bring the user profile back to the original location, you need to undo the specified steps in the same manner. For this, first delete the junction using the command rd c:\
Windows 7
Reuse search requests in Windows Explorer
this should be easy.
You often enter search requests with the same search terms and settings in Explorer. The repeated execution of these requests is annoying and takes just too much of time. In order to solve this problem, open Windows Explorer with [Win]+[E]. On the left side of the window, navigate to the desired drive or folder in whose substructure you want to look for files. Enter the search term in the input field to the upper right corner. The OS comes up with results even as you enter the search term and the number of hits in the list reduces with every alphabet that you type. You can also refine your search by entering more criteria. For this, click in the input fields and select the Type, Date Modified, Size, Name and/or Folder location links in the following menu. Another menu or a dialog box is displayed in which you can select the desired limitations. In case of just Name and Folder location, you need to enter the searched character string right after the colon in the search request. It is usually not possible to move user profiles under Windows. You thus have to use a trick to move the profile data to another location of your choice and let Windows continue to believe that everything still is where it should be. For this, set up a junction (connection). The prerequisite for this is that you are using the NTFS file system. Since the following steps are not reliable with Windows already running, start the system with the installation DVD and follow the steps up to the language selection. Use the key combination [Shift]+[F10] to open a command line window. Check the individual drive
Robocopy is a powerful command line utility. You can check out its various options and abilities.
users. The real data at d:\Newusers is

retained and can be copied to c:\users on the system drive.

Check copied files for transfer errors
In case of extensive copying activities, you would like to check whether everything has actually gotten copied properly. You are thus looking for a suitable quality control tool. With fciv.exe, Microsoft provides a command line tool that calculates checksums and hash values of files but is not very widely known. The program name stands for File Checksum Integrity Verifier. You can use it for checking the copying process of files. The tool can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/ kb/841290. Start the installation with administrator rights via the right-click
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HANDS ON
QUICK TIPS
OPEN NEW WINDOWS
Use the explorer/n command under Start | Run for instance to open a new Explorer window at the highest drive level.
basis of this information. The additional SMART parameters are not immediately available in the free version, but can be easily requested. Click the S.M.A.R.T. button for this and then click No in the following dialog box. The data is prepared as a HTML page and displayed in the default browser.
SHOW WINDOWS VERSION

The DWORD value PaintDesktopVersion = 1 in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\ Desktop provides an information display in the lower left corner of the desktop.
Note: The values for the data

throughput and the expected service life are not yet available for a completely new drive and are displayed only after it has been in use for a while. In case of repeated installations, the expected remaining service life decreases with every subsequent installation, but this gets normalized after a while since the program is based on an average rate of writing processes.
Microsoft offers this tool for download, but does not include it with Windows by default.
context command Run as administrator. After accepting the license agreement, click Browse in the next dialog box and navigate to the Windows folder. There you can unzip the program so that it is available on the system path. In order to use it, open a command line window via cmd in the start menu. With fciv, you can get additional information about using the individual parameters. In principle, the tool generates checksums from the output data and saves it in a database file such in the XML format. These values can later be compared with the calculated checksums of the copied files. In order to check the files from c:\ data, type fciv c:\data -r -bp c:\data -xml result.xml. Here, the r option ensures that all the sub-folders are also recursively included and the bp c:\data option ensures that the basic path c:\ data is not taken into account. The results are saved in the result.xml file. The copied files can later be checked against the database with their checksums. For this, you can use the command fciv v bp g:\data xml data that for instance should contain the copied files against the checksums in results.xml. If this is not the case, you get an error message; else, a confirmation stating that all files have been successfully checked. Moreover, you can also list the checksums of all individual files with fciv list xml results.xml.
ACCELERATE RUN
Use the [Win]+[R] key combination to directly open the Run dialog box for which you usually need to go to Start | Run.
ADAPT USER ACCOUNTS

You can access the settings of a user account in the Control Panel directly by clicking the account icon to the upper right of the Start menu.
EXECUTE COMMANDS
You can enter commands such as regedit directly in the address bar of Explorer instead of in the search field of the Start menu.
Windows 7
Deactivate the new Windows function called Aero Shake
Shaking inactive windows away with a couple of clicks is a practical feature, but it is annoying when you accidentally activate it when moving
The free tool SSDLife determines the current parameters of an installed SSD drive and forecasts its service life on the basis of your personal typical usage. The tool is available free from ssd-life.com where a premium version is also available for a cost but has additional features. Under Downloads, look for the link for the free version. The scope of functionality of this free version is usually sufficient. You need the paid version only if you want to check the status regularly and on time and want to request additional information or use several SSDs simultaneously. In order to install, double click the downloaded file to open it and follow the instructions. Administrator rights are required for executing the program due to which the user account control query must be answered with Yes. In a while after this, the tool identifies your SSD and shows a lot of information about it. In addition to the model and the size, you also see information about how long the disk has been in use and how many times it has been booted. Together with the transfer data in GB, you also get a prognosis of the remaining service life calculated on the
windows around.
result.xml. It checks the folder g:\
A registry setting is responsible for recognizing the Windows shortcuts.
Windows does not have an option to disable Aero Shake. You can however still manage this by means of an additional entry in the registry. For this, enter regedit in the search field of the Start menu and press Enter. Confirm the user account control query with Yes. Then navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced key. Click in the right part of the window and go to Edit | New | DWORD Value. Enter the name DisallowShaking and press Enter. Now open the new entry for editing by double clicking it, set the Value to 1 and confirm the change with

Assess the condition and service life of SSD drives
You use an SSD as a super-fast drive. You want to check the status in order to be able to act on time before there are any problems.
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OK. Now close the registry. Aero Shake is now completely deactivated and can no longer be called up with usual key combination [Win]+[Home] either. the Other option for a complete search. Click Next and then select the relevant memory location. Then search for a drive or partition, select the option At a specific location and then enter the memory location or navigate there via Browse. You can also select Recycle Bin or can search the entire computer with I am not sure. Then click Next. In the following dialog box, keep the option Activate deep scan deactivated since this analysis can take very long. You quickly get a result after clicking Start. The list shows all the deleted data and highlights files that can be restored. By clicking the Advanced Settings button, you can select every rediscovered file, see a preview of it to the right and view detailed status information in the Info tab. In case of files marked in red that cannot be restored, you can immediately see what they have been overwritten with. When restoring, activate the checkbox for the required files and then click Restore. Always select a folder on another drive as the storage location and then click OK. automatically updates the date and time, go to Insert menu, click Date and Time. Then on the Header and Footer dialog box that appears, click on the Slide tab. Here ensure that the Date and time check box is selected. Select the Update automatically option and here from the drop-down list, select the required date and time format that you want to show in your presentation. Also, select the Don't show on title slide check box if you do not want to display the date and time on the title slide. Finally, click on Apply to All. The date and time will be updated whenever you reload the PowerPoint document or begin a slide show.
Select "Update automatically", the required date and time format to configure it automatically.
HANDS ON
10
Note: If Aero Shake is activated, you

can also restore the windows that you have accidentally shaken away. For this, just shake the active window or press [Win]+[Home] again.

Retrieve deleted data from USB pen drive and memory cards
You have accidentally deleted files from a USB pen drive or photos from an SD card. Since there is no recycle bin there, there is simply no way to restore this data.
Note: The restoration usually works for

defective or garbled files as well, but of course the result will also be garbled. In case of a text file however, this can still
It might be possible to recover deleted data from a pen drive or memory card.
be of a little help if certain parts of the text become legible once again.
11
Word 2003, 2007, 2010

Translate documents directly from Word
There is no guarantee for data restoration but it is also not impossible that you can recover deleted files. What is of utmost importance is that after the deletion, you should not write anything on the disk in question because that could cause the required content to be overwritten. In order to prevent this, install the free tool Recuva on your hard disk. It is available from www.piriform. com/recuva. After a quick installation, a wizard comes up that helps you with the following steps. First select the file type such as Images or Documents or use
APPLICATIONs
You want to translate a complete German document into English without investing too much of time. You know a few online services but they are just too tedious. With Office, you can easily send a document to an online translation service and request machine translation. Here, you need to keep in mind that the quality of a machine translation is usually not up to the mark. It can however definitely be a good starting point for your work. Before using any online translation service, you first need to enter its Internet
10
PowerPoint 2003, 2007

Automatically update the time and date
In PowerPoint, you can automatically update time and date for every slide. If you regularly use the same presentation, but want to keep it updated with the current time and date then you can easily do so. Instead of doing it manually, you can change the settings to auto. To configure PowerPoint so that it
Tips & Tricks
HANDS ON
11
12
VBA editor, navigate to the This working folder entry in the upper left of the project explorer under VBAProject" of the current file. Double click and open the relevant code window that is now ready for your entries.In the right combination field, select the SheetChange system procedure whereupon the relevant number of macros is added below. Add all the further rows as follows:
Word now independently takes care of machine translations via an online translation service.
The program can be used to create links for starting specific tasks.
address to the Word Processor. For this, activate the research options in the task field. In the new versions, click Research in the Review" tab in the ribbon. In Word 2003, go to Tools Research. Then select Research options at the end of the task field. Then in the dialog box with the same name, click Add Services. Now enter the Internet address of the online translation service under Address, e.g. for the Microsoft Translate, http://www. microsofttranslator.com/OfficeTrans/ Register.asmx. Click Add and a set-up for the service starts. Word is now ready for the work. Select the text you need to translate and click on Research and select the entry Translation under Search for. In Translation, select the source language under From and the target language under To. Here in addition to the common language such as English, German and French, you can also select other languages such as Italian, Greek, Russian and Thai. In order to translate the entire document, you can use a small white arrow with a green base near Translate entire document or Send document online for translation in unencrypted format. Confirm with Send in the next dialog box so that the Word Processor transfers your data via Internet. The result is displayed to you in the browser. If you have several translation services installed, you can click Translation Options and then specify which service the Word Processor should use for which translation.
from threats, you also want to conduct regular checks like system errors. For that, you will need to rummage through the entire menu. In Kaspersky Internet Security, you can create new links to directly start regularly used tasks. For this, right click the program icon in the info field of the taskbar and then select the context command Settings. Now click the Scan tab and then select General Settings. Here in the Scan Tasks Quick Run section you will find options to create shortcuts for specific tasks. You can use them to create a separate link for the Full Scan, the Quick Scan or Vulnerability Scan. After a click on it, you can change the target location Desktop to another one that is less visible and create the link by clicking Save. In the other available categories such as Full Scan, you also have the option of setting up an automatic, time-controlled execution of the relevant tasks, namely the Start Mode option.
Private Sub Workbook _ SheetChange(ByValSh As Object, ByVal Target As Range) Application.EnableEvents = False Sh.Range("A1").Value = Date Sh.Range("A1").NumberFormat = "mm/dd/yyyy" Applications.EnableEvents = True End Sub
The sample code is triggered on the current sheet by the result of the change. The value of the current date is then entered on the sheet in the A1 cell. It is mandatory to switch the event processing off within the macros in this example; else, the change in the A1 cell automatically triggers the next SheetChange event. This would always lead to an endless recursions. Instead of a separate entry for every table, you can also access the document property and update it centrally in the same table. Then also specify the relevant work sheet, for instance:
Worksheet("Sheet1").Range("A1"). Value= ThisWorkbook. BuiltDocumentProperties(12)
This command will change the A1 cell
in Table1 and assigns it with the document property specified with the last change. This is the information that can be called up in the file properties under Windows. After entering the script, close the VBA editor and save the Excel file in your document folder. When calling up the sheet, ensure that the contained macros
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Excel 2003, 2007, 2010

Record the last modified date internally
You want to keep a track of when your Excel sheet was last modified. You want Excel to insert and update the date automatically. As a solution for this, you need a VBA code in the working folder so that a macro automatically ensures an update. Open the relevant working folder for this and select the command"Tools Macro Macros. From Excel 2007 onwards, activate the View tab in the taskbar and click the Macros icon. Now enter a macro name and click Create or if a macro already exists, click Edit. In the
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12
Kaspersky Internet Security

Set up quick and easy direct start for important tasks
In addition to the automatic protection
You can automatically record modification date of a file with the help of an event procedure.
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are activated; else, the security settings prevent the functioning of the macro.
HANDS ON
Note: The mini mode of iTunes is a

practical alternative. For this, minimize the program window and right click a free place in the taskbar. Then select the context command Toolbar iTunes. Both these space saving variants are however mutually exclusive. You see a mini control bar that gives you direct access to the important playback and volume functions instead of the program icon only if iTunes is normally minimized.
COMMUNICATION
14
iTunes
Minimize programs in the taskbar or the info field
16
Internet, navigation
Plan your holiday online
You want to calculate various routes and variants for optimum travel planning. The problem here is that your navigator often stops functioning because it requires satellite reception.
You play music on iTunes 24x7, but you dont like the fact that the icon of iTunes occupies space in the taskbar even though you seldom access it.
14
16
15
Excel 2007 and 2010

Prevent undesired error messages in Excel 2007
You are searching for information in Excel from other table fields with Vlookup and want to adapt it. You often get error messages if the search term is not present.
With the help of a simple program setting, you can minimize iTunes in the info field of the taskbar. You can get accurate road directions online, which you can either print or bookmark.
Here is an example for the functioning and advantages of Vlookup. For instance, you have a table that
Online travel planning via your computer at is simple and easy. Go to routes.tomtom.com. In the fields 'From' and 'To', define the start and end locations, wherein accurate address specifications are possible. It is also possible to search directly on the tab. Here, right click the desired position and follow the Start here or End here link. You can define a time for starting so that intelligent time-dependent data from IQ routes can be correctly used for calculation. Then click Plan route. After a little time, you see the result and can list the individual steps with Display navigation instructions. You can go through all the individual sections, save the address displayed in the address line of the browser as a bookmark and then call it up later. This address can also be copied and sent via email.
In the program options, you can configure a setting so that the icon is automatically minimized in the info field of the taskbar. You can also decide with the functionality of Windows whether the icon should be displayed or hidden. For this, select the command 'Edit | Settings' and click the Advanced icon in iTunes. Activate the 'Display iTunes icon in taskbar' option there. This is deceptive because the icon is still displayed but the option moves the display in the info field. Then activate the 'Minimize iTunes window in the taskbar' option. The next time the program window is minimized, it is visible only in the info field and disappears from there after some time. If you want to see the icon, click the small triangle there and then the Adapt link. Search for the iTunes entry in the list and change the setting to Display icon and messages in the relevant combination field to its right. The icon will be visible after you click OK.
records names and telephone numbers. And if you include some of the names elsewhere in the sheet then you can enter the relevant number using the Vlookup function. Vlookup will search for the name accurately in the sheet. The formula used is as follows:
=VLOOKUP(H2, A1:B16, 2, FALSE)

Here H2 is the name, A1:B16 is the table field, 2 is the column that contains the numbers, whereas false will search for the exact corresponding name. In case of success the formula outputs the relevant number in I6 or else it will show #N/A. This is not an error, as it means that the name is not present in the list. If you wish to change this output to Not Present! for your convenience, then you can easily do so. Using IfError, you can change the output message to lets say not present!, with the help of the following formula.
Note: Tomtom.com doesnt have data

for India.
Compiled by Team CHIP send your tips to [email protected]
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(H6, A1:B16, 2, FALSE) "Not Present!") ,
INTERVIEW
unwind
Stylish and brutal supernatural FPS The Darkness II was initially scheduled for release in October. Unfortunately, the waits going to be a little longer, as 2K has pushed back the game to the next year. So for our Darkness fix, we got in touch with Dave Kudirka, producer at Digital Extremes, to find out how theyre upping the ante for the sequel to a great game.
By AvinAsh BAli
version being developed in-house? Yes, sadly many PC gamers missed a real gem when the first game was released on consoles only. At Digital Extremes, we have the engine and the tools to develop for PC and we are handling that all in house. All platforms are being developed together so the experience across all platforms will be the same.
he first game was a consoleexclusive. What made you guys work on PC this time? Is the PC
What led to the different art style? Is there some sort of deeper meaning over here or have you gone in for a cel-shaded look because, well, it looks cooler?
For The Darkness II we decided to go back to the source material and
draw heavy visual inspiration from the comics. We combined this graphic novel style with certain lighting techniques, which can be found in the film noir genre. The result is a highly detailed graphic style that is full of vibrant color and distinct barriers of light and dark; a style were calling graphic noir. This change brings us closer to the comic books that have inspired us along the way, but also allows us to generate some fresh gameplay using the mechanics of light and dark.
Arent you afraid quadwielding will make the game a bit too easy? How do you plan on balancing things out?
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INTERVIEW
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Its totally trueyour two deathdealing demon arms elevate you to
what seems to be a godlike status in The Darkness II. Once the player discovers how intuitive the demon arm controls are, they will quickly be able to orchestrate a fury of slashing and grabbing attacks in concert with mix-and-match dual-wielding. However, the constraints on Jackies powers help balance the difficulty; he can only use his powers in the dark, and some of his more dangerous enemies know how to exploit that. By using light as a weapon, they will create turning points in combat that can be very dangerous for Jackie.
How different is the Brotherhood from the Mafia in the first game, and what do they really want Jackies powers for?
Q A
Comic book textures and film noir lighting techniques combine into The Darkness II's 'graphic noir' art style.
Rival mobsters lack the knowledge necessary to compete with Jackies
executions Jackie can pull off?
can do with the demon arms?
powers, but they try to outnumber and out-gun Jackie. They are loyal to their respective mob families and will stand and fight, but they fight with fear and desperation. By contrast, the Brotherhood is an ancient organization with greater knowledge and insight into Jackies powers, and they possess the tools and strategies necessary to battle a Darkness host, with the goal of capturing that power for their own use.
Thumbing through the pages of the Top Cow comics, there is some
As you progress through the game, killing enemies and appeasing the
really spectacular gore in there and we are showing a similar level of that gore in The Darkness II, but I think our graphic style helps keep it fun. Some of the executions weve revealed so far are the Spinal Tap, the Anaconda, the Wishbone and the Daisy Pop. By executing the Spinal Tap, you dangle your enemy with one arm while the other rips out his spinal column.
Darkness, you get rewarded with essence that can be spent at talent shrines. These talent shrines offer multiple paths of customization that can upgrade all your powers, not just your demon heads. For example, Gun Channelling allows you to channel your Darkness energy into your equipped weapon(s) for a time-limited gain of ramped damage and unlimited ammo. Further upgrades down the same path will let you see enemies through walls and shoot through any surface in the world. In the hands of a seasoned FPS player, this power is pure destruction.
Have you upped the ante as Q far as violence and gore go? What are some of the gruesome
Will players be able to Q upgrade their powers as well? Whats the most badass thing one
The Darkness allowed players to explore a bit of the game world outside the story. Does that return in the sequel or will it be a strictly linear fare?
While The Darkness II is primarily a linear narrative experience, there
are opportunities to deviate from the critical path and explore some of the local color of the game. We want players to really feel like they are wielders of the Darkness, and to experience this story as Jackie. Other than that, we havent yet revealed any more details.
[email protected]
The Darkness II is scheduled for release

The Darkness II introduces quad-wielding, allowing for a whole new level of brutality in combat.
on February 10, 2012 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

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An average, unpolished shooter that tries hard to appeal to the jock crowd, and fails.
By AvinAsh BAli
can picture the sales pitch for Call of Jaurez: The Cartel. Executive #1: I dont think we can go back to the
of Juarez game was pretty rough around the edges, but was positively received because it showed a ton of potential. Bound in Blood, the highly underrated sequel, realised that potential and became a highly enjoyable shooter thanks to an engaging plot and some very decent voice acting. But now, with The Cartel, Techland have gone two steps back, negating everything theyve worked on so far just to appeal to the jocks. In fact, all of the games charm was lost as soon as they made the transition to modern day. In The Cartel, you play as one of three characters - LAPD detective Ben McCall (descendant of Ray McCall, the bible-toting
You can play as one of three characters, each with their own hidden agendas.
Wild West after Red Dead Redemption, so how about we take this series to the modern day?. Executive #2: Yeah, I dont think anyones ever done a Westernthemed shooter in modern times right? Executive 1: Yeah, its a guaranteed success. And just to make it edgy and cool, lets add a ton of bad words. F-bombs need to be dropped every few minutes. Executive 1: I think were on the cusp of something huge here. In case my rendition of that boardroom meeting didnt drive the point home, heres what you need to know - Call of Juarez: The Cartel is a Western-themed, modern-day shooter youve probably played a thousand times by now. And of course, other games have done it better. Theres some semblance of a plot here, but its lost between clichd, onedimensional characters and incoherent, profanity-laden babbling. The first Call
RATING 2.5/5
RATINGS
First-person shooter
Call of Juarez: The Cartel

PriCe Publisher DeveloPer DisTribuTor Phone e-Mail PlaTforM
Rs 2,499 (Xbox 360, PS3) Ubisoft Techland E-Xpress Interactive 022 29661017 [email protected] PC (September 16), Xbox 360, PS3
For
Weapons sound and feel authentic, gunplay can be fun.
AGAinst
Terrible visuals, clunky controls, repetitive gameplay, Tries too hard to appeal to todays jock crowd.
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Game Review
badass from previous CoJ games), FBI agent Kimberly Evans, or DEA agent Eddie Guerra. Each of these characters has a particular attribute you can trigger during gameplay. McCall, for example, can slow time down, only this game has the smallest slow motion meter in the history of gaming. Can you sense the irony here - a slow motion feature that gets over this fast? Gunplay itself is pretty satisfying since the weapons sound and feel authentic enough, packing a mean punch through the bad dudes. Throughout every mission, youll get calls from various shady characters either from the agency or the street informing you of certain pick-ups spread out through the level. This could include anything from a stash of money to a cell phone to a weapon, but you have to make sure your partners dont catch you in the act. While I think this is a pretty cool concept in a co-op game, it becomes really stupid while playing with the AI since theyre so freaking dense. Lock them in a room, search the entire level for drops, come back and theyll still be in that locked room. Certainly not the brightest tools in the shed. Surprisingly, they hold their own in combat fairly well, so you dont have to worry about playing babysitter all the time. Mission structure is very linear, which
The gunplay is one of the redeeming factors for The Cartel, and weapons pack a mean punch.
unwind
means youll be propelled from one level to another by boring cutscenes or a rather unnecessary amount of driving. And since car control in this game completely sucks, the driving segments become a complete pain in the backside. There will be times when youll be able to blast fools from the passenger window as your partner drives the car, but most of the time, youll have to make your peace driving around an average virtual recreation of downtown Los Angeles. Even controlling your character feels really weird and clunky, with the aiming sensitivity being either too high or too less. This obviously makes fire fights more of a chore since youre struggling to stay alive amidst
the hail of incoming bullets as well as unresponsive controls. Making fire fights even tougher is the fact that the game looks so bad that enemies tend to blend into the environment. I was squinting throughout most of the game, especially during the games very first forest level, where I had a tough time figuring out where a tree ended and a bad guy began. And for some reason, its like youre made of glass in this game. Take even the most minute amount of damage and your screen starts flashing red, which means its time to find a safe spot, suck your thumb and head back into action. Rinse, repeat a million times and thats pretty much what this game is about. I tried. I really tried to enjoy this game, since I am a fan of this series. I put up with the horrendous visuals, the atrocious controls, monotonous level design, and the bland plot, but then it hit me - as a paying customer, I shouldnt be trying this hard to like a game. In fact, it should be the other way around, where Techland go out of their way to make me fall in love with their game. Unfortunately, thats really not the case here and Call of Juarez: The Cartel comes across as a very average, unpolished shooter that feels like a rushed product.
While Bound in Blood's Western setting presented some great visuals, The Cartel disapppoints in this area.
[email protected]
09/2011
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game review
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RATING 4/5
Another stunner for Kinect.
By MurAli VenuKuMAr
be a travesty to the teams creativity and vision. Tetsuya Misuguchi's Q Entertainment has conjured up a showcase title for Kinect; one that transcends its slightly simplistic gameplay mechanics. It proves that games with motion controls dont have to be piss-poor by default. Child of Eden begins with a back-story-filling text crawl followed by a sumptuous cinematic introduction. The game centers on Lumi, the first human born in space, whose consciousness is in the process of being incorporated into the Internet (Eden). However, this eventual subsumption is jeopardized by a virus infestation that threatens to bring a quick end to Lumis existence. You are tasked with stopping the corruption from spreading and re-plotting Lumis journey into the World Wide Web. As refreshingly new age as it sounds, you wont see too much of the story aside from brief lines of text at the end of each level. And as high concept as Child of Eden likes to think itself, its gameplay elements are easy to summarize. These expertly honed guided shooter levels task you with tagging targets before shooting them. In addition to your standard firearm, you also have a rapid-fire weapon. Targets are also colorcoded so you know which weapon to use. Switching between the weapons quickly
t would be easy to pigeonhole Child of Eden into an on-rails shooter straitjacket, but doing so would
becomes second nature and youll find yourself settling into a natural rhythm, helped in no small part by the music. The levels youll fly through are set to tracks by Mizuguchis band, The Genki Rockets, who play a pleasing blend of J-pop and Electronica. The shots you fire also dynamically alter the score. As comes with pedigree, the controls are as refined as the pacing of the levels. The standard Xbox 360 controller works perfectly well, with the cursor being controlled using the analog stick and shots fired using the triggers or face buttons. Its a perfectly capable way to play the game, but pales when compared to how involved the alternative control scheme is. Those of you with Kinects will be pleased to know that the Kinect implementation is absolutely brilliant. You use your right hand to tag enemies as they fly towards you and then let loose a volley of shots at them with a short thrust of your palm. Your left hand acts as a rapid-fire weapon, and raising both arms activates a screen-clearing explosion. Youll also find health and bomb pickups through the levels. There are five levels to choose from, with each opening up in sequence. These are based on certain themes, the ocean or flight, for instance, and will take you a little over 15 minutes each to complete. All told, youre looking at 90 minutes worth of game, which is ridiculously less no matter how you try and cut it. Granted,
therell be much restarting as the levels arent checkpointed, but theres always the danger that a skilled player will be able to breeze through them in no time. Aside from the brevity of the experience, there isnt much to complain about. The visuals are beautiful, especially so when you see overlays of Lumi (played by the vocalist of the Genki Rockets) within the game world. There are also a few unlocks that fiddle with the visuals and the sound, and a freeplay mode that lets you enjoy levels by giving you infinite health. As an experience and as a showcase for the Kinect, theres no beating Child of Eden. Now, if only theyd stuck more levels in to give it more meat.
[email protected]
RATINGS
Shooter
Child of Eden
PRICE PlatfoRm PublIshER DEvEloPER DIstRIbutoR PhonE E-maIl
Rs 1,999 Xbox 360 (Kinect supported) Ubisoft Q Entertainment E-Xpress Interactive 022 29661017 [email protected]
For
Trippy visuals, catchy soundtrack, addictive gameplay.
AGAINSt
Thin on content.
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game review
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Even the Gods are flawed.

By Murali VEnukuMar
RATING 3.5/5
opportunity to experience a genre of video games that seemed lost to shotgun blasts and bloody splatter. God games are a subset of the strategy genre that involves players in caring for a people or community without having direct control over them. In short, you play God using your given set of powers to shape the lives of your flock, and hit specific objectives for each level before being allowed to move on to the next. From Dust tasks you with leading the tribesmen and women who are in your charge on treks to totems spread across increasingly treacherous terrain. Your means of delegation comes in the form of a cursor (called the breath) that could probably moonlight as an earthworm. Clicking on totems around the map causes villagers to automatically make a beeline for it, with you having no control over their path. The challenges come from the maps themselves, filled with environmental hazards such as volcanoes, raging torrents of water between pockets of land, and even full blown tsunamis. Youre tasked with manipulating these forces of nature to ensure safe passage for villagers between the totems. What this translates to in gameplay terms is the ability to pick up and drop dirt, water and lava wherever you please. This mastery of terrain altering lets you sculpt levels in ways that ensure the villagers safety from being washed away or burnt to a crisp. There are added dangers in the form of elemental trees,
here have all the God games gone? Eric Chahi and Ubisofts From Dust gives gamers an
for example, that show up later on in the game. In addition to simply tossing elements around the sandbox, you also gain abilities from the totems themselves. Some of these are defensive, such as a shield ability that stops tsunamis, while other timed abilities, such as evaporating water can be activated via the d-pad. While theres no faulting the sandbox weve been given, some of the rules youre straddled with make the experience less than ideal. For one, the pathfinding of your villagers is beyond atrocious. Governed by ill-conceived logic, these country bumpkins will often take the least logical route to their destination and completely bypass the one youve built. What could have been a potential annoyance quickly turns into controller chucking frustration when youre tasked with fighting both their stupidity and a timer thats ticking down to yet another natural calamity. Did I mention the timed levels? Its doubly annoying when you have these beautiful worlds to play with but never given enough time to do so. There are also far too many uncontrollable variables (random environmental events), which will often put paid to an hour of labor. Its enough to put you off the game entirely. Other annoyances include the awful camera, the height of which can only be adjusted to two presets, neither of which gives you the best view of the action. The bigger maps also involve loads of scrolling back and forth, something that would have been remedied with a bookmark feature. There are also instances when youll inexplicably
RATINGS
Strategy
From Dust
Price Publisher DeveloPer PlatForm
Rs 700 (approximate) Ubisoft Ubisoft Montpellier Xbox 360 (1200 MS Points), PC ($14.99), PS3 (delayed)
FOr
The perfect sandbox, visually spectacular.
agaINSt
Timed objectives, trial and error gameplay.
find your progress impeded by minor imperfections in the earth or a dollop of water you forgot to scoop up, which prevents a pathway becoming available to the villager AI. You may find yourself having more fun with From Dust when youre not actually playing it. Just messing about in the sandbox and watching how the different elements interact with each other is a treat. Youll never tire of watching water cascading down undulating land, for instance. Watching flora and fauna organically spread across a once desolate island is uniquely calming and cathartic. Combined with exemplary visual and sound design, unlockables that flesh out the history of the tribe, as well as a beefy challenge mode, theres little at fault with From Dusts presentation or breadth of content. Unfortunately, its held back by a range of issues that should have been caught quite early on in development.
[email protected]
SMS us! Story code: UFD to 51818
Jagdish Limbachiya
09/2011
129
GAME REVIEW
unwind
RATING 3/5
A fun, but overpriced move from touchscreen to touch-free. BY SAMeer DeSAi

you higher points, and to make things interesting, the game throws up bombs from time to time in amongst the fruit, which you must avoid. What feels instantly accessible and intuitive on a touchscreen, will take some getting used to on Kinect, which basically has you slicing in thin air. While youre quite literally touching the fruit you slice on a touchscreen, there is a clear disconnect with the Kinect version, because theres no feedback whatsoever, so youre never 100 percent sure that youre swiping your hands exactly where you need to. The game does project a silhouette of yourself in the background, but that really doesnt help a lot. It's all well and good when all you have on screen is a bunch of fruit, at which you can just slice away wildly, but its when a bomb gets thrown up into the mix that things get tricky. Slicing fruit, while still avoiding the bomb requires precision, and sadly, that level of precision is just not present here. Its not the Kinect at fault here; were the game available for Wii or Playstation Move, wed face the same problems there. Its just the sort of game that requires a level of feedback to the player that motion controls just dont provide. In that sense, this is very much a game best played on a touchscreen device. But thats not to say that Fruit Ninja Kinect isnt fun. Its immensely enjoyable, particularly when played in short bursts with friends. Its also a great example of how the responsiveness and accuracy of the Kinect sensor has come along since launch. You still wont see one-to-one accuracy, but its responsive enough not to make you feel removed from the experience, like some of the launch titles did. Then again, this game doesnt use full-body tracking like many of the other Kinect games do. The game only tracks from the waist up, which is also great news for those with limited open space. There are plenty of single-player as well as co-op and competitive twoplayer modes available. From frantic timed events to challenging elimination challenges to simple, mindless free-play modes, theres plenty to do whether youre playing by yourself or with friends. But again, its pretty much the same basic concept across the board, so this is a game best enjoyed in short bursts or youll get bored fast. One aspect of the competitive multi-player challenges we didnt like is that the game artificially makes sure that both players finish close on points. So if one player gets a big lead, the game will reduce the amount of fruit thats thrown up for him/her so the opponent can catch up. I get that this is a casual party game, but the game is fun enough on its own without having to resort to such cheap (and obvious) tricks to make things exciting. Fruit Ninja Kinect is quite a workout and it is way more responsive and accurate than I would ever have imagined, but at the end of the day, this is pretty much the same game youve probably already played on your iOS or Android device. What goes against the game the most, however, is the price. At 800 Microsoft Points (approximately Rs 450), the Kinect version costs ten times more than the $0.99 app available on the App Store. If you can justify that premium for the living room Fruit Ninja experience, go for it. I most certainly cant.
[email protected]
very year, Xbox Live plays host to the Summer of Arcade, where every week for a month, one of
the most promising new downloadable game releases is featured. In the past, weve been treated to masterpieces such as Shadow Complex, Braid and Limbo. So it seemed strange that this years Summer of Arcade features Fruit Ninja Kinect, a console motion-controlled remake of Halfbricks smartphone app. While this isnt just a straight port upscaled for the Xbox 360 - there is a fair amount of additional content you wont find on the smartphone versions, this is essentially the same, thoroughly basic concept you may have already experienced on your touch-enabled device (there are also plenty of free knock-offs available on the Android Market under different names, like Fruit Slice). For those new to Fruit Ninja, the game essentially involves you slicing fruit. Fruits of all shapes and sizes are tossed up from the bottom of the screen, and you have to slice all of them before gravity takes over and sends them plummeting back down. Slicing multiple fruits in a single swipe nets
RATINGS
casual/party
Fruit Ninja Kinect

Price Publisher DeveloPer PlatForm
800 MS Points (approx Rs 450) Microsoft Halfbrick Studios Xbox 360 (Kinect mandatory)
FOr
Responsive, plenty of content, fun with friends
aGaINst
Expensive, not as precise as the touchscreen versions
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Jagdish Limbachiya
SMS us! Story code: UNK to 51818
COLUMN
unwind
publishers are playing it safe by investing in high definition remakes of their popular ps2 games.
moving backwards
ts now been five years since the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii, were released, so this is usually the point in a life cycle when developers start to get really comfortable with the consoles, start to realize the true potential of the hardware, and therefore make the best games possible. Its also the time when everyone, from the platform owners to the game publishers, start to streamline their processes and become more profitable. Its a period of consolidation and maturity; a time to reap the returns on investment. So from a gamers point of view, youd probably be rubbing your hands in anticipation because this is when you start to expect the very best games. So its bewildering to see this worrying trend of publishers investing money in re-releasing games from the PS2 era in high definition, rather than encouraging fresh ideas and new IP. The trend was started by Sony, who has removed PS2 backwards compatibility from the PS3. So to make those games available to PS3 owners, it chose to remaster and polish up some of its PS2 classics and make them available on Blu ray. The first out of the blocks was the God of War Collection, which included the first two games, originally released on PS2, remastered in HD and made available on a single Blu ray disc. It was cleverly released at the height of God of War 3s pre-release hype and sold phenomenally well. And since it was just a remaster and not a complete remake, it was way more profitable than a new game would be. Since then, Sony has also released the Sly Collection, another very competent HD re-release. Id love to play my favorite PS2 games
sameer desai
in HD on my PS3. Id kill for an HD re-release of GTA: San Andreas. I also love that Sony is releasing HD remasters of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, two underrated PS2 classics. The downside to this trend, however, is that some publishers have seen the success of Sonys remakes and decided to do the same for its most popular franchises. Ubisoft has released the Prince of Persia PS2 trilogy in HD and is soon to release a Splinter Cell collection. Square Enix has also released the Tomb Raider collection. These are all great games, but its in the quality of the remasters that the PoP and Tomb Raider collections differ from Sonys releases. The transition to HD for the Prince of Persia games in particular has been disappointing, with ugly textures and tons of jaggies. Its not what you expect from a remaster, and you cant help but feel like this is just the publisher taking advantage of loyal fans. The coming months will witness HD re-releases of other hit PS2 franchises, including Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Theres even another God of War collection, this time containing the two PSP games. HD re-releases can be great if done right, but publishers should take care to ensure that the transition to HD is a worthy one. Moreover, I hope that these re-releases dont divert development funds away from new, original games, because its only through new ideas that this industry can move forward.
metal gear solid, tekken, resident evil, silent hill - they're all getting hd remakes.
- [email protected]
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Market Watch
ProCessors: Intel
NaMe Intel Pentium E5700 Intel Pentium E5800 Intel Core i3-540 Intel Core i3-540 Intel Core i3-2100 (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 Intel Core i5-2310 (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core i5-2300 (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core i5-2500 (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core i5-2500K (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core i7-2600 (Sandy Bridge) PrICe (rs) 3,700 3,996 5,850 5,850 6,100 6,250 10,287 10,300 11,100 11,600 12,600 16,500 CPU soCKet LGA 775 LGA 775 LGA 1156 LGA 1156 LGA 1155 LGA 775 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 NUMber oF Cores 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4 4 CLoCK sPeed 3.00 GHz 3.20 GHz 3.06 GHz 3.20 GHz 3.10 GHz 2.93 GHz 2.90 GHz 2.80 GHz 3.10 Ghz 3.30 GHz 3.30 GHz 3.40 GHz MFG ProCess 45 nm 45 nm 32 nm 32 nm 32 nm 45 nm 32 nm 32 nm 32 nm 32 nm 32 nm 32 nm tdP 65 W 65 W 73 W 73 W 65 W 65 W 95 W 95 W 95 W 95 W 95 W 95 W
ProCessors: aMd
NaMe AMD Sempron 145 AMD Athlon II X2 250 AMD Athlon II X2 255 AMD Athlon II X2 260 AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE AMD Phenom II X4 970 BE AMD Phenom II X6 1055T AMD Phenom II X6 1075T AMD Phenom II X6 1075T AMD Phenom II X6 1100T PrICe (rs) 1,925 3,050 3,400 3,500 4,625 5,950 6,775 7,775 8,275 9,300 10,075 10,500 CPU soCKet AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 NUMber oF Cores 1 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 CLoCK sPeed 2.80 GHz 3.00 GHz 3.10 GHz 3.20 GHz 3.20 GHz 3.20 GHz 3.40 GHz 3.60 GHz 2.80 GHz 3.00 GHz 3.00 GHz 3.30 GHz MFG ProCess 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm 45 nm tdP 45 W 65 W 65 W 65 W 80 W 125 W 125 W 125 W 125 W 125 W 125 W 125 W
Motherboards: aMd - IGP

NaMe Biostar TA880GB+ ECS A885GM-A2 Gigabyte 880GM-USB3L Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3 Asus M4A88T-M MSI 880GMA-E45 Asus F1A75-M LE Asus M4A88T-M/USB3 Asus F1A75-M Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 MSI 890GXM-G65 Asus F1A75-V PRO Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 PrICe (rs) 3,950 4,275 4,625 5,025 5,300 5,700 6,021 6,100 6,534 6,550 7,550 8,397 9,300 CPU soCKet AM3 AM3 AM3+ AM3 AM3 AM3 FM1 AM3 FM1 AM3 AM3 FM1 AM3 ChIPset AMD 880G + SB710 AMD 880G + SB850 AMD 880G + SB710 AMD 880G + SB710 AMD 880G + SB710 AMD 880G + SB850 AMD A75 AMD 880G + SB710 AMD A75 AMD 880G + SB850 AMD 890GX + SB850 AMD A75 AMD 890GX + SB850 MeMorY sUPPort DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 dVI | hdMI 4|4 4|6 4|4 4|4 4|4 4|4 4|6 4|4 4|4 4|4 4|4 4|4 4|4 PCI X16 | PCI | sata | Usb 1 | 2 | 6 | 10 2 | 2 | 5 | 12 1 | 2 | 4 | 10 1 | 2 | 5 | 14 1 | 1 | 6 | 12 1 | 1 | 6 | 14 2 | 1 | 6 | 14 1 | 2 | 6 | 12 2 | 1 | 6 | 14 1 | 1 | 5 | 14 1 | 1 | 5 | 14 2 | 1 | 6 | 16 2 | 2 | 6 | 14
Note: Street prices (incl. VAT) as on 10 August 2011.
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CHIP brings you a roundup of all the latest and greatest products on the market.
Motherboards: aMd - Non-IGP

NaMe Asus M4A87TD Asus M4A87TD EVO Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 Asus Sabertooth 990FX Asus Crosshair V Formula PrIce (rs) 5,650 6,750 10,250 13,800 15,100 cPU socket AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3+ AM3+ chIPset AMD 870 + SB850 AMD 870 + SB850 AMD 890FX + SB850 AMD 990FX + SB950 AMD 990FX + SB950 MeMory sUPPort DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 PcIe x16 slots 1 2 4 4 4 PcI | sata | Usb 3 | 6 | 14 3 | 6 | 14 1 | 8 | 14 1 | 8 | 18 1 | 7 | 12
Motherboards: Intel - IGP

6aMe ECS G41T-M5 Asus P5G41C-M LX ECS H55H-CM Asus P7H55-M Intel BOXDH55TC Intel BOXDH67BL Asus P8H67-M Asus P8H67-M EVO Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H ASUS P8Z68-V ASUS P8Z68-V PRO PrIce (rs) 2,025 2,725 4,125 4,700 5,400 5,700 7,000 8,750 8,790 12,500 13,800 cPU socket LGA 775 LGA 775 LGA 1156 LGA 1156 LGA 1156 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 chIPset I6tel G41 + ICH7 Intel G41 + ICH7 Intel H55 Intel H55 Intel H55 Intel H67 Intel H67 Intel H67 Intel H67 Intel Z68 + No Intel Z68 + No MeMory sUPPort DDR2 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 d-sUb | dVI | hdMI 6|6|6 6|6|6 4|4|4 4|6|4 4|4|4 6|4|4 4|4|6 4|4|4 4|4|4 6|4|4 6|4|4 PcIe x16 | PcI | sata | Usb 1|1|2|4 1|2|4|8 1|1|6|6 1|1|6|6 1|1|6|6 1|1|3|6 2|1|4|6 2|1|4|4 1|0|3|4 2|2|4|6 2|2|4|6
Motherboards: Intel - Non-IGP

NaMe ECS P55H-A MSI P67A-GD55 MSI X58 Pro-E Asus P8P67 Asus P6X58D-E Asus Sabertooth X58 Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 ASUS Sabertooth P67 MSI Big Bang X-Power Gigabyte G1.Guerrilla Asus Rampage III Extreme Gigabyte G1.Sniper Gigabyte G1.Assassin Asus Rampage III Black Edition PrIce (rs) 6,475 10,575 10,775 10,800 10,900 11,500 11,900 13,125 14,300 18,675 22,000 22,525 25,200 28,000 32,750 cPU socket LGA 1156 LGA 1155 LGA 1366 LGA 1155 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1155 LGA 1155 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 LGA 1366 chIPset Intel P55 Intel P67 + No Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel P67 + No Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel P67 Intel P67 + No Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R Intel X58 + ICH10R MeMory sUPPort DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 DDR3 PcIe x16 slots 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 6 3 4 3 4 4 PcI | sata | Usb 2 | 6 | 14 2 | 6 | 14 2 | 7 | 13 3 | 8 | 16 2 | 8 | 10 1 | 8 | 14 1 | 6 | 14 2 | 6 | 18 1 | 4 | 18 0 | 8 | 12 1 | 8 | 16 1 | 9 | 11 1 | 8 | 16 1 | 8 | 16 0 | 8 | 15
09/2011
133
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Market Watch
Graphics cards: aTi
Name Asus EAH5450 SILENT/DI/1GD3 Asus EAH5670/DI/1GD3 Sapphire HD 5670 Sapphire HD5750 11164-00 Powercolor AX5770 1GBD5-H XFX HD-577X-ZNFK Sapphire HD5770 11163-02 Powercolor AX6850 1GBD5-DH MSI R6850-PM2D1GD5 XFX HD-685X-ZDFC Asus EAH6850 DC/2DIS/1GD5 Powercolor AX6870 1GBD5-2DH XFX HD-687A-ZNFC MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 Sapphire HD 6950 MSI R6970-2PM2D2GD5 price radeoN GpU (rs) 1,728 4,347 5,075 6,350 7,325 7,850 8,025 10,250 10,725 10,825 10,900 13,650 14,100 16,125 17,925 21,275 HD 5450 HD 5670 HD 5670 HD 5750 HD 5770 HD 5770 HD 5770 HD 6850 HD 6850 HD 6850 HD 6850 HD 6870 HD 6870 HD 6950 HD 6950 HD 6970 direcT X 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 memorY memorY | BUs TYpe WidTh DDR3 GDDR3 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 1 GB | 64-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 256-bit 1 GB | 256-bit 1 GB | 256-bit 1 GB | 256-bit 1 GB | 128-bit 1 GB | 256-bit 2 GB | 256-bit 2 GB | 256-bit 2 GB | 256-bit sTream processors 80 400 400 720 800 800 800 960 960 960 960 1120 1120 1408 1408 1536 core | memorY speed (mhz) 650 MHz | 800 MHz 775 MHz | 800 MHz 775 MHz | 1000 MHz 700 MHz | 1150 MHz 850 MHz | 1200 MHz 850 MHz | 1200 MHz 850 MHz | 1200 MHz 775 MHz | 1000 MHz 775 MHz | 1000 MHz 775 MHz | 1000 MHz 790 MHz | 1000 MHz 900 MHz | 1050 MHz 900 MHz | 1050 MHz 800 MHz | 1250 MHz 800 MHz | 1250 MHz 880 MHz | 1375 MHz
Graphics cards: Nvidia

Name Sparkle GT 520 - 1 GB POV GeForce GT 220 - 1 GB Zotac GeForce GT 240 - 1 GB Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti - 1 GB ASUS GeForce GTX 550 - 1 GB Palit GeForce GTX 460 - 1 GB Sparkle GeForce GTX 460 - 1 GB POV GeForce GTX 460 - 1 GB Palit GeForce GTX560 OC - 1 GB EVGA GeForce GTX 560 - 1 GB Zotac Geforce GTX 560 - 2 GB Zotac Geforce GTX 560 Ti Amp - 1 GB Sparkle GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 1 GB MSI Twin Frozr II GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 1 GB Zotac GeForce GTX 570 GF110 - 1280 MB EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD - 1280 MB MSI GeForce GTX 570 GF110 - 1280 MB MSI Twin Frozr II GeForce GTX 580 - 1536 MB Zotac GeForce GTX 580 - 1536 MB Palit GeForce GTX 580 - 3 GB Asus Geforce GTX 590 - 3 GB price (rs) GeForce GpU direcT X 3,024 3,550 3,975 8,800 9,025 10,025 10,800 11,000 12,150 12,501 13,608 14,400 14,575 15,600 20,100 21,384 22,000 27,600 29,525 32,000 42,650 GT 520 GT 220 GT 240 GTX 550 Ti GTX 550 GTX 460 GTX 460 GTX 460 GTX 560 GTX 560 GTX 560 GTX 560 Ti GTX 560 Ti GTX 560 Ti GTX 570 GTX 570 GTX 570 GTX 580 GTX 580 GTX 580 GTX 590 DX 11 DX 10.1 DX 10.1 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 DX 11 memorY TYpe memorY | BUs WidTh DDR3 DDR2 DDR3 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 DDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 DDR5 DDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 64-bit 128-bit 128-bit 192-bit 192-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 320-bit 320-bit 320-bit 256-bit 384-bit 384-bit 768-bit sTream processors 96 48 96 192 192 336 336 336 336 336 336 384 384 384 480 480 480 512 512 512 1024 core | memorY speed (mhz) 810 MHz | 450 MHz 625 MHz | 400 MHz 550 MHz | 400 MHz 900 MHz | 1025 MHz 910 MHz | 1025 MHz 650 MHz | 850 MHz 700 MHz | 900 MHz 675 MHz | 900 MHz 810 MHz | 1005 MHz 810 MHz | 1002 MHz 820 MHz | 4008 MHz 950 MHz | 1100 MHz 822 MHz | 1000 MHz 822 MHz | 1000 MHz 732 MHz | 950 MHz 732 MHz | 950 MHz 732 MHz | 950 MHz 800 MHz | 1024 MHz 772 MHz | 1002 MHz 772 MHz | 1002 MHz 612 MHz | 855 MHz
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EXtERNAL DRIVE
NAME Hitachi X Mobile Series HDD-X320 Buffalo HD-PVU2 Series HD-PV500U2/BK Hitachi X Mobile Series HDD-X500 iOmega Red Hot Skin Series 35108 Western Digital My Passport Essential iOmega eGo 35241 Western Digital Elements Series Buffalo HD-PCTU3 Series HD-PCT500U3 Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Western Digital My Book Essential Series Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Western Digital My Passport Studio Series Verbatim 47514 Western Digital My Book Studio II Series pRICE(Rs) 2,525 3,000 3,150 3,450 3,600 3,700 3,750 3,950 3,950 4,225 5,450 5,525 6,000 21,425 CApACIty 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 1 TB 500 GB 1 TB 1 TB 2 TB 500 GB 2 TB 4 TB INtERFACE USB 2.0 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 USB 3.0 USB 3.0 USB 2.0 USB 3.0 USB 2.0 USB 3.0 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 / FW 800 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 / FW 400 FORM FACtOR 3.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 2.5-inch 3.5-inch 3.5-inch 3.5-inch 3.5-inch
USB FLASH DRIVE

NAME iball Ultra Strong Transcend JetFlash V70 Corsair Flash Voyager Transcend JetFlash 300 iball Ultra Strong Corsair Flash Voyager Transcend JetFlash 300 Transcend JetFlash 500 Corsair Flash Survivor GT2 Sandisk Ultra Backup CApACIty 425 525 600 650 675 950 1,125 2,400 4,775 5,875 pRICE (Rs) 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 8 GB 8 GB 8 GB 16 GB 32 GB 32 GB 64 GB
CAMCORDERS
NAME Samsung K44 Sony Handycam DCR-SX63E Sony Handycam DCR-SR68E Sony Handycam DCR-SR88E Canon Legria HF R17 Canon Legria HF R18 Canon Legria HF M300 Sony Handycam XR 550 Canon Legria HF M31 Canon Legria HF S200 pRICE (Rs) 15,532 17,408 17,750 22,050 25,000 39,900 41,800 46,550 50,700 58,000 RESOLUtION OptICAL ZOOM 720 x 480 52x 720 x 480 60x 720 x 480 60x 720 x 480 60x 1920 x 1080 20x 1920 x 1080 20x 1920 x 1080 15x 1920 x 1080 10x 1920 x 1080 15x 1920 x 1080 10x
pROJECtORS
NAME Viewsonic PJD5152 LG BS275 Sony VPL-EX100 Projector Mitsubishi EX200U LG HS201 G Viewsonic PJD5352 Sony VPL-EX120 Projector Viewsonic PJD6531W Mitsubishi HC4000 Mitsubishi XD600U
pRICE (Rs) 31,325 31,600 35,100 35,475 41,900 44,550 47,900 52,275 82,975 85,225
typE DLP DLP LCD DLP DLP DLP LCD DLP DLP DLP
BRIgHtNESS 2600 Lumens 2700 Lumens 2300 Lumens 2300 Lumens 2000 Lumens 2600 Lumens 2600 Lumens 3300 Lumens 1300 Lumens 4500 Lumens
NAtIVE RESOLUtION 800 x 600 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1024 x 768 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1024 x 768 1280 x 800 1920 x 1080 1024 x 768
CONtRASt RAtIO 3000:1 2200:1 2200:1 1250:1 2000:1 2600:1 2500:1 2800:1 3600:1 2000:1
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Market Watch
Laptops
Name Toshiba Netbook NB250-A1110 Lenovo S Series S10-3C 59-051325 HP Mini 210-1116TU Toshiba Satellite C660-P5010 ASUS Eee PC 1215P-BLK019S Lenovo S Series S10-3s 59-044172 Acer Aspire AS 5742z HP Compaq Presario CQ42-372TU Toshiba NB520 NB520-A1110 ASUS A52F-EX1096D Acer Aspire AS 5742 Toshiba Satellite C660-P5210 Samsung RV-Series NP-RV411-A01IN ASUS A53E-SX181D Toshiba Satellite C660-I5013 Acer Aspire AS 5745 ASUS A42 SeriesF-VX130D MSI Classic CR420 ASUS A42JY-VX113D ASUS A52JT-SX374D MSI Classic CR620 Sony Vaio Y Series VPCYA15FG/B MSI F Series FR600 Dell Vostro 3400 ASUS A42F-VX408R Samsung R Series NP-RV409-S01IN Asus P52F-SO114D Lenovo G Series G570 59-068336 Samsung R Series NP-R439-DA09IN Toshiba Satellite L650-I5310 Acer Aspire AS 5742 Lenovo Z Series Z-570 59-067790 Samsung R Series NP-R440-JT01IN Sony Vaio E Series VPCEA43EG Sony Vaio E series VPCEB44EN price Weight (rs) 15,300 1.18 Kg 16,850 1.50 Kg 17,600 1.22 Kg 20,250 2.40 Kg 20,425 1.45 Kg processor Intel Atom N455 Intel Atom N455 Intel Atom N450 Intel Pentium P6200 Intel Atom N550 Intel Atom N475 Intel Pentium P6100 Intel Pentium P6100 Intel Atom N550 Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Pentium P6200 Intel Pentium P6200 Intel Core i3-2310M Intel Core i3-380M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i5-330M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i3-380UM Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-380M Intel Core i5-480M Intel Core i3-2310 Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i5-480M Intel Core i3-2310M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i3-380M Intel Core i3-380M memory 1.66 GHz 1.66 GHz 1.66 GHz 2.13 GHz 1.50 GHz 1.83 GHz 2.00 GHz 2.00 GHz 1.50 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.13 GHz 2.13 GHz 2.10 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.13 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.40 GHz 1.33 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.66 GHz 2.10 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.10 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.53 GHz chipset 1 GB 1 GB 1 GB 1 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 1 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 3 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 4 GB 2 GB 1 GB 2 GB 2 GB 3 GB 2 GB 3 GB 3 GB 4 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB DispLay 10.1-in 10.1-in 10.1-in 15.6-in 12.0-in 10.1-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 10.1-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 11.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 14.1-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 15.5-in hDD 250 GB 250 GB 320 GB 250 GB 320 GB 250 GB 500 GB 320 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 250 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 320 GB 320 GB 250 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 640 GB 500 GB 320 GB 500 GB 640 GB 320 GB 320 GB 320 GB opticaL Drive
No No No DVDRW No No DVD-RW DVDRW No DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW No DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVD-RW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVD-RW DVDRW DVDRW No DVDRW
os Win 7 Starter Win 7 Starter Win 7 Starter DOS Win 7 Starter Win 7 Starter Win 7 HB DOS Win 7 Starter DOS Linux Win 7 HB Win 7 HB DOS DOS Linux DOS Win 7 HP DOS DOS Win 7 HB Win 7 HP Win 7 HB DOS Win 7 HB DOS DOS DOS DOS Win 7 HP Win 7 HB DOS Win 7 HP Win 7 HB Win 7 HB
21,000 1.50 Kg 21,150 2.60 Kg 21,400 2.20 Kg 21,500 1.32 Kg 25,000 2.62 kg
25,450 2.60 Kg 25,750 2.40 Kg 26,000 2.2 Kg
27,000 2.60 Kg 27,000 2.40 Kg 27,050 2.60 Kg 28,550 2.00 Kg 29,225 2.00 Kg 29,850 2.20 Kg 29,850 2.62 Kg 29,850 2.48 Kg 30,000 1.46 Kg 30,375 2.30 Kg 30,500 2.10 Kg
31,425 2.20 Kg 31,450 2.20 Kg 31,500 2.62 Kg 31,600 2.6 Kg
31,700 2.20 Kg 32,500 2.60 Kg 33,750 2.60 Kg 34,000 2.60 Kg 34,200 2.20 Kg 35,700 2.35 Kg 36,950 2.70 Kg
136
09/2011
Laptops
Name HP Pavilion XV677PA Toshiba Satellite L640-X4310 Dell Vostro 3500 ASUS A43SJ-vx259D Dell Inspiron 15R ASUS X42JR-LF001V ASUS K52JR Sony Vaio E Series VPCEA46FG/B/L/W Acer Aspire AS 4820TG Samsung N Series NP-R580-JT01 Samsung SF-Series NP-SF510-S07IN MSI F Series FX400 Samsung NP-R580-JT02IN HP PC TM2-2102TU MSI F Series FX600 ASUS B43F-VO023V Sony Vaio F Series VPCF135FG/B Lenovo Y Series Y-560 59-051026 Samsung N Series NP-SF510-S01IN Toshiba Satellite L650-X5310 Sony Vaio E Series VPCEB3AGG ASUSU45JC-WX016X Samsung SF NP-SF411-S02IN ASUS N53JG-SX045V Sony Vaio C Series VPCCA15FG ASUS U43JC-WX057V Lenovo Y Series Y560 59-055616 Sony Vaio S Series VPCSB16FG/B Toshiba R Series I3431 Sony Vaio F Series VPCF136FG/BI Sony Vaio S Series VPCSB18GG/B Toshiba R Series R700-X3430 Toshiba Satellite A660-X5310 Dell Alienware M15X Sony Vaio F Series VPCF217HG/BI price Weight (rs) 37,000 37,300 38,300 38,340 39,744 41,175 41,700 42,650 42,800 44,400 44,950 45,375 46,100 46,300 46,425 49,250 49,300 49,400 51,000 51,800 52,550 53,025 53,400 54,475 55,400 56,025 56,300 56,350 62,100 68,700 68,700 71,950 72,450 97,006 151,590 2.49 Kg 2.26 Kg 2.40 Kg 2.44 Kg 2.65 Kg 2.25 Kg 2.10 Kg 2.35 Kg 2.11 Kg 2.60 Kg 2.2 Kg 2.20 Kg 2.60 Kg 1.89 Kg 2.41 Kg 2.48 Kg 3.1 Kg 2.90 Kg 2.40 Kg 2.60 Kg 2.70 Kg 2.14 Kg 2.19 Kg 2.71 Kg 2.45 Kg 2.14 Kg 2.00 Kg 1.72 Kg 1.39 Kg 3.2 Kg 1.72 Kg 1.39 Kg 2.62 Kg 4.08 Kg 3.2 Kg processor Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i5-450M Intel Core i3-350M Intel Core i5-2410M Intel Core i3-380M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i5-480M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i3-2310 Intel Core i5-480M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i3-380UM Intel Core i5-480M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i5-560M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i5-520M Intel Core i5-560M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i5-2410 Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i5-2410M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i7-740M Intel Core i5-2410M Intel Core i3-370M Intel Core i7-740QM Intel Core i7-2620M Intel Core i5-460M Intel Core i5-560M Intel Core i7-720QM Intel Core i7-2820QM memory 2.40 GHz 2.66 GHz 2.26 GHz 2.30 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.66 GHz 2.60 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.10 GHz 2.60 GHz 2.53 GHz 1.33 GHz 2.60 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.66 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.93 GHz 2.66 GHz 2.40 GHz 2.30 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.30 GHz 2.40 GHz 1.73 GHz 2.30 GHz 2.40 GHz 1.73 GHz 2.70 GHz 2.53 GHz 2.66 GHz 1.60 GHz 2.30 GHz chipset 3 GB 3 GB 4 GB 2 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 3 GB 4 GB 4 GB 8 GB DispLay 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 12.0-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 16.4-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 15.5-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 14.0-in 14.0-in 15.6-in 13.3-in 13.3-in 16.4-in 13.3-in 13.3-in 15.6-in 15.6-in 16.0-in hDD 320 GB 320 GB 500 GB 640 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 320 GB 640 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 320 GB 320 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 640 GB opticaL Drive
DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW Any DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW No DVDRW DVDRW Any DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVD-RW BD-ROM DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW DVDRW BD-ROM
os Win 7 HB Win 7 HP DOS DOS DOS Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HB Win 7 HB Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 Pro Win 7 Pro Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 Pro Win 7 HP Win 7 Pro Win 7 Pro Win 7 HP Win 7 HP Win 7 Ultimate
09/2011
137
market watch
Market Watch
Digital Cameras
Name Canon PowerShot A800 Nikon Coolpix L23 Fujifilm FinePix AV200 Sony Cybershot DSC S3000 Kodak Easyshare M532 Olympus FE-4020 Canon Digital IXUS 105 IS Canon Powershot A3200 IS Nikon Coolpix S3100 Canon PowerShot A3300 IS Casio Exilim EX-Z90 Fujifilm FinePix JZ300 Kodak EasyShare M590 Olympus SP-600 UZ Casio Exilim EX-Z550 Sony Cybershot DSC-W570 Sony Cybershot DSC-T99 Sony Cybershot DSC-H70 Nikon Coolpix S8000 Sony Cybershot DSC-TX9 Sony Cybershot DSC-WX1 Nikon Coolpix S1100pj Canon Powershot SX230 HS Samsung EC-ST5500 Samsung EC-WB650 Fujifilm FinePix S4000 Casio Exilim EX-H10 Olympus MJU-Tough 8010 Olympus SP-800 UZ Canon IXUS 310 HS Canon Powershot SX30 IS Canon Powershot S95 Canon Powershot G12 PriCe (rs) 4,256 4,750 4,782 4,975 5,550 5,700 6,506 7,386 8,075 8,266 8,800 9,500 10,350 10,450 10,550 10,875 12,975 13,925 14,475 14,765 14,850 16,375 16,396 16,551 16,652 16,950 17,300 17,925 17,925 19,476 22,996 24,756 29,656 resolutioN oPtiCal Zoom 10 MP 10 MP 14 MP 10.1 MP 14 MP 14 MP 12 MP 14.1 14 MP 16 MP 12.1 MP 12 MP 14 MP 12 MP 14.1 MP 16.2 MP 14.1 MP 16.2 MP 14.2 MP 12.2 MP 10 MP 14.1 MP 12.1 MP 14 MP 12 MP 14 MP 12.1 MP 14 MP 14 MP 12.1 MP 14 MP 10 MP 10 MP 3.3x 5x 3x 4x 4x 4x 4x 5x 5x 5x 3x 10x 5x 15x 4x 5x 4x 10x 10x 4x 5x 5x 14x 7x 15x 30x 10x 5x 30x 4.4x 35x 3.8x 5x WiDe aNgle 37 mm 28 mm 32 mm 28 mm 28 mm 26 mm 28 mm 28 mm 26 mm 28 mm 35 mm 28 mm 35 mm 28 mm 26 mm 28 mm 25 mm 25 mm 35 mm 25 mm 24 mm 28 mm 28 mm 31 mm 24 mm 24 mm 24 mm 28 mm 28 mm 24 mm 24 mm 28 mm 28 mm aPerture F3 - F5.8 F2.7 - F6.8 F2.9 - F5.2 F3.0 - F5.7 NA F2.6 - F5.9 F2.8 - F5.9 F2.8 - F5.9 F3.2 - F6.5 F2.8 - F5.9 F3.1 - F5.9 F3.3 - F5.6 NA F3.5 - F5.4 F2.6 - F5.9 F2.6 - F6.3 F3.5 - F4.6 F3.5 - F5.5 F3.5 - F7 F3.5 - F4.6 F2.4 - F5.9 F3.9 - F5.8 F3.1 - F5.9 F3.3 - F5.5 F3.2 - F5.8 F3.1 - F5.9 F3.2 - F5.7 F3.9 - F5.9 F2.8 - F5.6 F2.0 - F5.8 F2.7 - F5.8 F2.0 - F4.9 F2.8 - F4.5 lCD siZe 2.5-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 3.0-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 2.7-inch 3.0-inch 3.0-inch 3.0-inch 3.5-inch 2.7-inch 3.0-inch 3.0-inch 3.7-inch 3.0-inch 3.0-inch 3.0-inch 2.7-inch 3.0-inch 3.2-inch 2.7-inch 3.0-inch 2.8-inch shutter sPeeD 15 - 1/2000 sec NA 8 - 1/1400 sec 2 - 1/2000 sec 8 - 1/1600 sec 1/2-1/2000 sec 1 - 1/1500 sec 15 - 1/1600 sec 4 - 1/2000 sec 15 - 1/1600 sec 1/4 - 1/2000 sec 8 - 1/2000 sec 1/2 - 1/1200 sec 1/2 - 1/2000 sec 4 - 1/2000 sec 2 - 1/1600 sec 2 - 1/1250 sec 30 - 1/1600 sec 4 - 1/1000 sec 2 - 1/1600 sec 2 - 1/6000 sec NA 15 - 1/3200 sec 1/8-1/2000 sec 1-1/2000 sec 8 - 1/2000 sec 4 - 1/2000 sec 1/4 - 1/2000 sec 1/4 - 1/2000 sec 15 - 1/1600 sec 15 - 1/3200 sec 15 - 1/1600 sec 15 - 1/4000 sec
138
09/2011
MONITORS
NAME Asus VH162DE BenQ G610HDAL LG W1643C BenQ G925HDA AOC F19S Acer S191HQL Samsung SyncMaster 2030N Dell IN2020M AOC e2043Fs LED Samsung SyncMaster B2230N Asus MS202N ViewSonic VA2448M Samsung P2370MS BenQ LED V2200 Eco LG E2360V ViewSonic VX2439wm BenQ G2420HD Acer B243H LG E2290V Asus VK278Q BenQ M2700 ViewSonic VX2753MH BenQ XL2410T LED ViewSonic VP2655WB Dell U2711 PRICE (Rs) 4,175 4,200 4,550 5,200 5,500 5,650 5,900 6,700 6,750 8,050 9,075 10,773 10,950 11,300 12,050 12,475 14,400 14,650 14,796 22,896 23,200 26,001 27,700 43,254 44,300 SCREEN WIDESCREEN SIZE 15.6-inch 4 15.6-inch 4 15-inch 4 18.5-inch 6 18.5-inch 4 18.5-inch 4 20-inch 4 20-inch 4 20-inch 4 21.5-inch 4 20-inch 4 24-inch 4 23-inch 4 21.5-inch 4 23-inch 4 24-inch 4 24-inch 4 24-inch 4 21.5-inch 6 27-inch 4 27-inch 4 27-inch 4 23.6-inch 4 26-inch 4 27-inch 4 NATIVE RESOLUTION 1360 x 768 1366 x 768 1360 x 768 1366 x 768 1366 x 768 1366 x 768 1600 x 900 1600 x 900 1366 x 768 1920 x 1080 1600 x 900 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1200 2560 x 1440 RESPONSE TIME 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms 2 ms 5 ms 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms 5 ms 6 ms D-SUB 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 6 DVI 6 6 6 6 4 4 4 4 6 6 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 HDMI 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 4 4 4 4 4 6 4 4 4 4 4 6 4
CABINETS
NAME Circle 5 Series Circle 6 Series Cooler Master Elite 330 Cooler Master Elite 430 Antec Two Hundred LIAN LI Lancool Dragon Lord PC-K56 Cooler Master Gladiator 600 Cooler Master CM 690 Antec Six Hundred Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Thermaltake M9D Series Antec Dark Fleet Antec Nine Hundred Thermaltake Element G Cooler Master Cosmos S
PRICE (Rs) 1,500 1,600 2,700 2,850 3,650 3,672 3,850 4,700 5,850 5,950 6,200 6,450 6,600 7,525 15,800
POWER SUPPLY 4 4 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
5.25-INCH BAYS 3 4 4 3 3 5 5 4 3 4 6 3 3 3 7
3.5-INCH BAYS 6 6 6 5 6 0 5 1 6 6 3 6 6 7 4
NUMBER OF FANS 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 4 3
09/2011
139
Personal Tech
Is apple beIng arrogant? of course It Is. but no one's ever gotten thIs far ahead by polItely askIng other people If they wouldn't mInd beIng beaten.
out with the old

s it time to say goodbye to the DVD? Apple would certainly like it to be, and its one of the only companies in the world that can decide so and have its own way. The writing has been on the wall for a while: Apple thinks the Internet is the only worthwhile method of distribution, whether it be for software, content or even personal files. With its cult following and tight control over hardware and software, Apple is in a position to direct users behavior patterns in ways both subtle and obvious. Take for example the way iPods and iPads play purchased iTunes content without a hitch, but refuse to recognize AVI files. Or the way your old accessories might suddenly not be compatible with new hardware. In addition, Apple has extraordinary amounts of control over its partners, developers, and suppliers. Its worked in the pastremember the original iMac, which launched, *gasp*, without a floppy drive! Apple was correct in predicting (and helping ensure) the death of the 1.44 MB floppy, but then again it wasnt a smooth process. Flash media barely existed, and USB hard drives were rare, expensive and slow. Buyers, who had no easy way to share files, desperately wanted iMacs to ship with CD burners. Apple, however, had just discovered the DVD and insisted on putting in DVD-ROM drives instead. Only several generations later did combo drives appear. Apple has always tried on and discarded things at willhardware, software, services and strategies. They switched from Motorola to PowerPC to Intel, led the Flash memory invasion, and dared to challenge the belief that batteries had to be swappableall without so much as blinking. For displays alone, theyve done away with their own Apple Display Connector, mini VGA, Micro DVI, and Mini
JAMSHED AVARI, deputy edItor
DisplayPort in the last ten years. Only dongle and adapter manufacturers could be happy that standards have changed so often. If something new isnt quite ready for mass adoption, Apple will also try killing anything that might hold it back. It got rid of serial and parallel ports long before the strange new USB connector was mainstream. FireWire has all but bitten the dust now that Thunderbolt is here, and we can assume that USB 3.0 ports arent coming to our favorite aluminum machines anytime soon. The strategy is ruthless and theres every chance that it will backfire at some point, but the fact that it hasnt yet just shows how strong and unique this companys position is. Which brings us back to the DVD. Despite years of begging, Blu-ray drives have never been an option, even on the hometheater-centric Mac mini (which, by some extraordinary concession, features an HDMI port). Common wisdom held that Apple was pushing iTunes for purchases and rentals, notwithstanding the lack of iTunes stores and decent enough Internet connections in many countries. Now we know how committed Apple is to that vision: DVD drives stayed around only as long as they were needed for installing software and taking backups. Now, users have iTunes, iCloud, Time Machine, Airdrop (Wi-Fi file sharing), and of course the Mac App Store. If they don't like it, too bad. Buy an external drive, while discs still exist. The only question is how quickly this attitude will spread through the industry. Netbooks and slim laptops have proven that it's possible, if difficult, to live without physical media. Now that Apple's views are clear, it's about to be pushed out of the mainstream as well.
- [email protected] - twitter.com/ja140
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SEPTEMBER 2011 VOLUME 8 ISSUE 10 Rs 150

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